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Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 1 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Venerable Lati Rinpoche
Vajrayogini Commentary
September 10 - September 13 2000, Vajrapani Institute
This is a draft commentary, not for use or redistribution. This is only for review purposes at this point of time. Furthermore, the final document is restricted, only for those who have taken a highest yoga empowerment of Vajrayogini, preferably from Ven. Lati Rinpoche, and if possible have attended a commentary by Ven. Lati Rinpoche. All errors are all mine, not the guru's. --Kent Sandvik
Day One September 10 2000

Motivation
Je Tsongkhapa says about the existing human birth taken at this time: we have to realize the rarity of this magnificent human birth, and we have to realize the meaningfulness of this human birth, and having such realizations and understanding day and night every time, we have to have a strong motivation to extract the essence from this human birth. As the verses clarify, its clear we have taken a very rate human rebirth this time, and there are various ways of rarity so we could establish how rare the human birth it, with the endowments such as the eight freedoms and ten endowments to practice dharma. We have the eighteen qualities to have such a human birth and practice dharma. Its very rare from many aspects, and it's not that we got this magnificent human birth, on top of that we came into contact with the teachings of Buddha, another rarity. We came into contact with great masters, spiritual guides, dharma teachers, and these dharma teachers are able to guide us into perfect paths, without any wrong concepts or mix-ups of various other parts and stages. Since we got such an opportunity, a golden opportunity this time, and having such a golden opportunity, if we dont extract the essence, try to achieve something, then we are wasting this opportunity. We need to view this very strongly, put very strong efforts, and extract the highest essence from this golden opportunity we got. If we are not capable to do this, if we dont do this, its like have this golden opportunity not to be used for a good purpose. If this golden opportunity comes again and again, we might make use of it in future, and have great achievements. But it does not happen this way. Great Shantideva said in Bodhisattva's Way of Life: "This magnificent human birth with various endowments is very difficult to acquire." If we don't help ourselves at this time when we have this magnificent human life, there will be no chances in future for us. As this magnificent human birth we got is very rare to get, its a great loss if we waste this golden opportunity. The loss of wasting this opportunity is even bigger than losing a jewel worth millions and millions of dollars. To make sure that we must not have such a great loss, we need to have the essence extracted from such a golden opportunity.
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Human Birth
To achieve the means and extract the essence we need to know what is the use of the human birth. This human birth is used to achieve various meanings, beneficial for present and future times. If we waste this opportunity we will not get those benefits. When we talk about the essence we could achieve by using this human birth, we could have various levels of essences and benefits, such as small benefits, medium, or highest benefits. Presently we got a golden chance with which we could achieve all these levels of benefits. Besides this, we need to understand that even if we could use this golden chance, we got to achieve various benefits and essences. If it stays around for a long time we could try to achieve those later, but its not like that. This human birth is not going to stay around for a long time; it is definite that it will be destructed. Its definite that we will die any time, in future. We dont know when we will die; there are no guarantees when this will happen, death itself is unpredictable, we cant predict when it will happen. When death arrives -- if we check ourselves, what we did in past and do just now, those things that helped us or not -- we will understand that most of those things we do in daily lives will not help us. Instead of helping us they will cause problems. Most of the time we try to acquire a lot of wealth and possessions, a lot of admirers and so forth. If we own the wealth of the whole world, it will not help us at death. As for admirers, even if we have the whole population as our relatives or dear ones, even that will not help us when we are dead. Theres only one single way to help us when we are dead, and thats the practice of dharma, thats the only thing that will help us when we die.
Other Realms
Its very clear that after death theres nothing else than practice of dharma that will help us. Even if this is so, if after death we vanish and dont exist any more, then we would not worry about dharma practice, we could do anything we want. But it does not happen this way. As far as we are beings with all the obscurations and impurities arising, we commit many non-virtuous deeds and affliction based deeds, and due to these deeds we take birth from one place to another in samsara, and our existence continues from one realm to another. Theres no way our consciousness ceases after entering death. As we continuously go from one birth to another, we are always guided by our strong karmas. In case we have strong virtuous karmas, we take birth in higher realms, and in case strong non-virtuous karmas we take birth in lower realms. These are the places we have to go, theres no third place out of these lower and higher realms. Even if we go into these two realms, we think its up to our wish, but its not like that. We are forced by the karmic forces, we cant make a wish and go to a specific place. If we are guided by karmic forces, we have to check how we commit karma, and what variety of karmic forces do we commit more. When we take a close observation to ourselves, we will understand that in our daily lives we do far more non-virtuous deeds than doing virtuous, good deeds. The good deeds in our life are very rare, and beside, the good karmas we collect are in greater danger to be ceased due to anger and hatred. Due to anger, if a person with lower realization grows anger to a person with a higher realization, it will cause the person to loose the virtuous deed he collected in thousand eons to be destructed or damaged. A practitioner of higher realization that gets angry to a person of lower realization, in that instance it will cause damage to the virtuous eons collected during hundred eons. Our virtuous deeds that are in very small amount are hard to keep, due to anger that is always around, always arising every day.
If we check this angle we will come to the understanding that the survival of virtuous deeds is difficult. The non-virtuous deeds are very strong, and we go greater amount of those each day. We do great many non-virtuous deeds, besides that, we do not practice the four opponent powers to purify the non-virtuous deeds, and make them non-existent. If we do this way we might have those purified, make sure they dont exist, but we dont do this in our daily lives. Today we go a magnificent human birth thanks to the gurus and the three jewels, the most rare phenomenon. Due to the kindness and blessings of our gurus and the three jewels, we are very lucky not to take birth into lower realms, and have a human birth taken. We are very lucky we are alive and are not going through death. If we have died its definite we might have go to lower realms, and theres no way we go out from lower realms. Here the great Shantideva says in Bodhisattva's Way of Life: "When we are having a suitable opportunity to carry on dharma practices, and cultivate the virtuous deeds, we dont do this, we just waste our time, and it will definitely be a big loss to us, we dont get more opportunities to do this." If we do this, we might take birth in lower realms, once we take birth there we might not have chances to get out. Its almost impossible to hear the name of higher realms when going to lower realms, we can't think about coming out from those lower realms when we get there, we should not take any chances about this. To make sure that we would not get into the lower realms and take continuous higher realms birth we need to take strong refuge into the three jewels, and carry on a proper practice of causality. When we talk about the practice of causality, it's about proper conduct of virtuous deeds, refraining from doing non-virtuous deeds, and getting involved into doing as much as possible of virtuous deeds and dharma practice. If we do this properly it is definite we will take births into higher realms, at least in some of the future births. We would avoid taking birth into lower realms. It depends on us if we are successful to do this; we need to check this. Even if we take birth into human realms, god realms, and so forth, we are not free from suffering. In the human realm we have a lot of suffering, birth, aging, suffering of dying, and so forth. There are various forms of sufferings in the god realms. What we need to do is to cease the sufferings of samsara, cut the roots of samsara. We need to do more than just take refuge and do proper practice of causality. Even if we take birth in the human ground, we have various sufferings of taking birth, and the suffering of the aging process, and the suffering of dying. Even if we are in the human realm, we have a lot of physical and mental pains I think I dont need to explain this in detail as most of us have experience of this. If we take a god birth, the gods have a strong sense of god-pride, this causes mental instability, and as a result of this they carry on wars against heavenly beings. They have physical pain, they could go through various physical pains due to having their limbs cut off, heads cut off. Even if we take birth in the heavenly realm of desire beings, we have many mental pains. Heavenly beings of desire realm have mental pains of seeing their future death, for seven days that are like years for human beings. They suffer extensively; have a strong mental pain equal to fifty years of human years. If we try to image this in our level, its almost unbearable.
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It is said that even if the physical pain in lower realms is strong, the mental pain is even more intense when the heavenly beings go through the sufferings of death.
Samsara
In the form and formless realms, even if the heavenly beings in these realms do not have intense mental and physical suffering, they are not in control of where to take birth, no control to maintain control in a comfortable state for a long time. The birth into these results are due to karmic forces, where these forces are over they have to go to lower states. They are not free to stay in this state for a long time. These samsaric sufferings are made clear in the text of the great saint Dalai Lama. He says that the three realms of samsaric existence are like a burning iron castle. Wherever we run in there we get burned. Theres no way, even if its disturbing to us. As far as we are in this burning castle, theres no way out, to be free from this burning heat. In the same way, we are in the samsaric structure, not free from the sufferings of samsara. Suffering is in the nature of samsara, it cant be separated from samsara unless we get out from samsara. As long as we are in samsara we are suffering. What we need to overcome all these sufferings of samsara, we need to be free from the root causes and conditions of samsara, to overcome the root causes of samsaric existence. We need to practice the three higher trainings; if we do these practices properly we will cease the samsaric existence. Even if we are free from the samsaric suffering, is that enough? If we check we will understand that we still have not overcome all the obscurations, we cant help all sentient beings in a greater scale, In this state what we could help is very limited. We must be able to operate in a greater scale to help sentient beings, we must be free from all obscurations; we must achieve something higher than just to be free from samsaric existence.
Bodhichitta
Even if we attained the great salvation, free from samsara, this is not enough. We could help ourselves but we are still not free from all obscurations. From the sense of helping other beings, all sentient beings, in a pitiful state, are our mothers, even if we dont recognize them as out mothers. We have gone through many changes, taken many various births, and this has caused us to forget out mothers that have helped us in past lives. When going through various stages of births we forgotten the sentient beings that were our mothers. All sentient beings are similar to our parents; they have served us equally to our present parents. It does not matter that the rest of the sentient beings have served us in precious lives, while the present parents have served us, given us birth in this life. Due to them given us birth and taken care of us we consider them very valuable to us. If we think about this, we need to give same importance to all other sentient beings as we give to our present parents. All sentient beings have been kind to us; we need to think about this, they had done this in our previous samsaric births. They have taken care of us, if we forget them when they are in a pitiful state when they need our help very strongly, if we ignore them now its very shameful. We are like a bad human being, we are considered as a shameless person. To make sure about us not having this bad character we have to help all the sentient mother sentient beings. What do we need to do? If we check our current capabilities, we cant do anything. We are not capable to help us ourselves, so how could we help them? What we need to achieve is great enlightenment.
If we achieve this we could help them in a great scale. We could help them in effective ways. It is said that even one act of Buddha can help innumerable beings to achieve enlightenment. To help sentient beings we need to achieve enlightenment, otherwise we cant help them. With such and understanding we need to cultivate our mind stream to help all sentient beings by attaining great enlightenment. To attain this I need to practice dharma. Today Im going take the teachings of Vajrayogini to help myself attain great attainment to benefit all sentient beings. We need to cultivate such aspiration deep in our mind. By having such an aspiration cultivated in our mind we have to resolve ourselves to listen to the teachings, have such a strong motivation listening to the teachings. At least in the case if you cant contemplate in this elaborate way, the what we need to cultivate is to benefit all sentient beings by achieving enlightenment. To attain that great enlightenment I would listen to the teachings of the Vajrayogini tantra practice. This kind of motivation is very important, almost indispensable when you take these teachings. This is a Mahayana teaching and we need to have bodhichitta cultivated in our mind when taking such teachings.
Vajrayogini Practice
Today we are going through the short daily practice of Vajrayogini. All major students here are going to do this practice in their daily life. It is best to give a commentary on this short sadhana to do the proper visualization. When starting with the commentary its important to explain the source of the teachings, the practice, where it came from. Its important you to understand this, have a knowledge where this practice of Vajrayogini came from. To explain this I would like to quote a verse from the root tantra of Heruka, 47th chapter, the subject to be discussed is the essence of all the dakinis. Just doing the recitation of these words is a great source of getting all the various achievements, siddhis, or attainments. Its very clear that with the recitation of Vajrayogini practice we could attain various siddhis and various levels of attainment. Also, this Vajrayogini tantra is given to Naropa, one of the most famous tantric practitioners of India, given to him by Vajrayogini herself. Its a direct practice, it has all the blessings from Naropa received by Vajrayogini. Naropa is a very famous practitioner and scholar of Tantra, and he had a many Indian followers, as well as many Tibetan followers. One famous Tibetan follower is Marpa the translator. He didnt give Vajrayogini to all the followers, these special instructions, or blessings of Vajrayogini. He choose his disciples from Nepal, Pamtimpa. There were two disciples, brothers, the elder known as Jigme (?) and the younger as Nwarang (?), to these two he gave the practice of Vajrayogini. Various famous practitioners then continuously kept this practice alive. From the Pamtimpa brothers the linage blessing continued to Losang Tsering, and then to the great translator, Mel Lotsawa, and then to the great Pandita of Sakya, and from there it has continued to my great guru, and I have receive this from my root guru and other great gurus. The practice lineage has been kept alive.
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Benefits of this Practice

The next topic is the benefits of this special instruction, practice of Vajrayogini. Generally, practices in various classes of tantra are swifter than in the Mahayana practices concerning achievement of great enlightenment. The four classes of tantra, of those the highest yoga practice, are the most swift ways to achieve great enlightenment, the quicker way. Of the various practices of highest yoga tantra, the practice of Heruka Chakrasamvara is even more swift and quicker for achieving great enlightenment. The history, story related to Heruka Chakrasamvara is: eons ago, the Shiva and his consort used to capture the top of mount Meru, and they had a retinue of heavenly beings, and non-heavenly beings, smell-eaters, and so forth. These captured twenty-four parts of the world, places in the real world, and they were very violent, they controlled the human beings living in the various parts of the world, influenced them, and forced them to commit non-virtuous deeds. The world was prevailed by non-virtuous, negative deeds. At the time all the Buddhas requested Vajradhara with the five buddha families to do something, to tame Shiva, and to make the sentient free from the influence and control of Shiva. The great Vajradhara manifested as Heruka Chakrasamvara with consort, and the five Buddha families assisted in building the mandala. Heruka Chakrasamvara with the deities of the mandala captured mount Meru, subjugated Shiva and his consort and the retinue, and took over all the twenty-four places of the world, and took care of the sentient beings. The great Heruka Chakrasamvara emanated his mandala on top of Mt Meru, and had the door towards the south direction, where this world is. As this happened, the sentient beings went free from the influence of Shiva and his consort. It is said in the text that the door of the Chakrasamvara mandala is still open. As a result of this, as time gets more degenerated, the blessings of Chakrasamvara practice gets more and more stronger, more intense. If we carry on this practice, we get the blessings and benefits stronger and stronger, more swiftly, than when it was done in the past!
[Note, the Indian Mahasiddha names might have wrong English spelling, need to double check this. KHS]
Because of doing the practices of Vajrayogini various yogis of the past went into the land of Kechara, pure land of Vajrayogini, this without giving up this human body. There are many practitioners that did this. For generating a more strong belief I will list some: Pamtimpa brothers did this, also the great mahasiddha Luipa, Dharandala, Drompipa, Shebuba, these are the Indian yogis and saints. Then there are other Indian yogis and saints that have attained the great attainment of Vajrayogini and went to Khechara. In Tibet we have various yogis who attained this attainment and went into Khechara, such as Mel Lotsawa, Natsag Tuba who lived in a cave, Hurang Lotsawa, these are various yogis that have achieve of Vajrayogini and went to Kechara. As for Mel Lotsawa, he put on all the bone ornaments and katvanga, and stated he would go to Khechara, and he disappeared. As for the Natsag Tuba, in the cave he practiced in five yogis achieved the same state in this same cave. These are some of the recorded yogis that have achieved this. But there are many other practitioners that are not recorded.
As of great Tsongkhapa, until he composed the great composition Generation and Completion stages path of Chakrasamvara, he was always having Vajrayogini serving him, serving him as a female being. After having the texts that reveal all concealed meaning of the practice of Chakrasamvara composed, he was having very clear appearance of Vajrayogini, again and again. This is what happened with Tsongkhapa himself. There were many other Heruka practitioners then later with similar experiences; if we try to repeat the names, it would take a long time to finish. There are many practitioners who achieved the great enlightenment of Vajrayogini, and then went to the pure land of Vajrayogini. I'm giving this list to ensure you to have a strong faith and belief in the practice and the blessings this practice carry. There are many various means, ways, to achieve the enlightenment, entering the pure land of Kechara. There's the practice of Chakrasamvara, and practice of various other highest yoga practices, and Vajrayogini practices. Of all the practices, if you want to go to the land of dakinis, the Vajrayogini practice is the most effective and easiest to do. In the other practices, we need to have all the concentrations done properly, visualizations done properly, recitations done properly, the performance of rituals done properly, it's very complicated. If we dont do these properly it's hard to reach Kechara. With Vajrayogini, this is not the case. With a very strong devotion, if we recite the sadhana and mantra each day we could go to Kechara. This is very clear in the root tantra of Chakrasamvara, in the 47th chapter it says that by just with the recitation of the mantra we could attain the various activities, this is the superior practice. I think the victorious Vajradhara would never tell lies, theres no reason. If Vajradhara says this, if we recite mantra and sadhana, we can fulfill the various activities of the deity. It is very clear. To have this benefit of entering the pure land of Vajrayogini, the most important thing is that we need is a very strong belief, faith, into the powers of the deity, and the deity itself. If we have this strong faith, and carry on with this, reciting sadhanas and mantras, then we could definitely reach Kechara. Such a special attribute is part of the Vajrayogini practice; there are no other practices that have such qualities connected to the practices. Theres another specialty, Vajrayogini is special from the contents of the body posture. Vajrayogini looks towards Kechara, here her left eye is looking towards Kechara and right towards practitioners. This is very important; she gives very strong blessings, very effective activities carried to the practitioners for going to the land of Kechara.
Person Qualified for the Practice

The person, the quality of the person, is to carry on the practice of Vajrayogini. The important condition is that we need to have an initiation of the Vajrayogini. Unless if we don't have this the practice of Vajrayogini will not be beneficial. To receive the empowerment of Vajrayogini it is good to have the initiation of the Heruka Chakrasamvara in the tradition of Luipa or Nakpopa, or Dhampapa, any of these three great yogis -- that would be the best way to receive Vajrayogini. To receive the initiation of Vajrayogini we need to receive the empowerment of Chakrasamvara; that would be the best possible way to receive the initiation of Vajrayogini. In the case someone is not having this initiation of Chakrasamvara, then this could be substituted by with having the initiation of other highest yoga deities such as Guhyasamaya, Yamantaka, Secret Vajrapani, or one should have received various other highest yoga empowerments.
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But Kalachakra is not suitable for receiving Vajrayogini empowerment. To receive the initiation its important to have the initiation with the four kayas (bodies) received, then when we do the Vajrayogini practice its OK. To receive a highest yoga empowerment we need to have done the practice of the three principal paths. If we have a high realization level due to the practice of the three aspects of the path done, then it would be best. If we dont have such high level of realization achieved, then at least it would be good to have renunciation developed, or experience of realization of the renunciation of the path. We need at least have a proper understanding what the three principal aspects of the path are. If we have a proper and good understanding of this, we need to aspire to achieve, to cultivate these three principal paths in our mind stream. If we do not have these, its not advisable to receive a highest yoga empowerment. We need a certain level of understanding of the three principal aspects of the path, and an aspiration to achieve those special qualities cultivated into oneself. After having that, then we could go to a tantric initiation, and after that to a Vajrayogini initiation. Without having a Vajrayogini initiation, even if we take the practice of Vajrayogini, it would actually be more dangerous and harmful than fruitful. We furthermore need specific qualities to achieve the realization of Vajrayogini. These are: 1. Strong faith, belief in Vajrayogini. This is not to have any intellectual doubts in the swiftness of the Vajrayogini practice. For example, the claim that Vajrayogini practice is swift and best way to get to the land of Kechara, without any intellectual understanding, just with faith reciting the mantras you get to the land of Kechara, does it really exist in this way or not would be a hindrance in forms of a doubt. We must not have this type of intellectual doubt, if we have this, the practice will not be fruitful. 2. We need a single-pointed mind, to generate a strong single-pointed mind. Without this its hard to reach realizations. 3. We have the practice done very secretly, secret to all other people. The tantric practices are given as secret practices, they have to be done in a very secret way. In the case of Vajrayogini it has to be done very secretly. Other people should not know we are doing the practice of Vajrayogini. If we dont do it this way, it would be difficult to achieve realizations, or go to the land of Kechara.
To carry on the practice of Vajrayogini we have two sets of four attributes we need in order to do the practice. We need to have initiation received from a lineage without having the lineage broken, or spoiled, in other words no faults in the lineage. We need the sadhana practices done with the deity with no interruptions. In the case of the initiation of other highest yoga deities, we need to have the practices of those deities done without interruptions. After done Vajrayogini initiation, we need to do the sadhana practice to make sure that the lineage blessings received are not interrupted. The lineage blessings received must not have any damage, no sort of faults concerning the various lineage gurus.
We must not have any in-orderly presentation of the practice in the instructions given to use. The instructions must be in the right order. First, we do the common Mahayana practices, then we do the initiations and practices of other highest yoga practices, and then we take on the Vajrayogini practice. It should not be done in a reverse order. Finally, we need to have a very strong respect towards our gurus. We need to have a very strong respect in the instructions of the Vajrayogini practice. This should be a very stable and strong respect. These are the four qualities of the hearing lineage. Then there are other four qualities. The validness of the practice, this should not be disturbed, the practice should maintain the validness. We need a valid guru to lead us on the practice of Vajrayogini. If we receive instructions from an invalid guru, not a qualified guru, theres a chance that the instructions the guru gave are false. Valid instructions. The instructions given by the guru should be valid. If the guru gives invalid instructions, if we carry those there might not lead to any realizations. The valid text. The text here refers to the sadhana texts, or the various other Vajrayogini texts used for this practice. These texts should not be self-created texts, not being created based on Chakrasamvara root tantra. The sadhana text, or any text we use for the Vajrayogini practice, must have a connection or composed having a reference or instructions from the Chakrasamvara tantra as its foundation. Valid experience. It says that the inconceivable completion stage practice is a unique Vajrayogini practice. The specialty of the Vajrayogini practice is that when we do the generation stage practices, general sadhana practices, we could do the completion stage practices at the same time. Another unique point is that we meditate on the inner tips of the channels, not the outer tips. In the Chakrasamvara tantra, we have two types of practices: one to the father Chakrasamvara practice, and the other to mother Chakrasamvara practice. As in the father Chakrasamvara practice, the meditation on channels is done on the outer parts of the channels. Here the concentration of channels is done in the inner parts of channels. The body mandala of Vajrayogini is very special, even more strong and special than other body mandalas. The body mandala of Chakrasamvara is even more effective than the body mandala practice of Guhyasamaya, and the Vajrayogini body mandala is even more effective than the Chakrasamvara body mandala. Naropa has taught all these valid facilities, by his own experience. These qualities are known to be valid experiences. There are other qualities of Vajrayogini practices. All qualities of Heruka Chakrasamvara are collectively done in the practice of Vajrayogini. Vajrayoginis practice contains all the other practices included as parts. The Vajrayogini practice is known as having all the various close instructions available in it.
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The other specialty is that we need to visualize the whole deities, palaces, various numbers of deities, but here in the Vajrayogini practice we dont need to do this. We dont need to visualize the design of palaces, having many deities in the mandala. We could just focus on Vajrayogini the deity. At this era, present time, when distractions are all pervading, its very effective to do the Vajrayogini practice. We dont need to do any fancy visualization; we could focus on a single deity with simple features. Specifically, in this degenerate era when the attachments are overwhelming, all pervading, Vajrayogini is said to be in the text manifesting in the form of ladies, granting attainments and blessings to practitioners. From various angles, corners, the practice of Vajrayogini is superior to other practices. With this, to make sure that we must generate, cultivate a very strong devotion and faith, belief in the Vajrayogini practice, I explained the source of the teachings, the practice, and then the benefits of the practice, and the special qualities of the Vajrayogini practice. This part is now over, in the next session we talk about how to carry on the Vajrayogini practice.
Sleeping Yoga
To begin the part of how to carry on the practice of Vajrayogini; we have two divisions, the generation stage practice to achieve, realize the external Kechara, and the completion stage practice. This first section of generation stage practice is further divided to sleeping yoga and wake-up yoga. The first section of sleeping yoga has ways to practice it, how to carry the generation stage practice of sleeping yoga with various signs, and then how to carry on the completion stage sleeping yoga with significance. First, it is explained how to do the practice of the sleeping yoga of generation stage. We need to stop the various ordinary appearances and various ordinary conceptions we have in our daily lives. After having those ordinary appearances stop we have to visualize our house where we live as a double-dharma source (rectangle shape), and inside this dharma source, in the center of that we visualize a huge throne, lion throne, with lions supporting the throne. On top of the throne, we visualize a variegated lotus flower, four petals or eight petals. In center of this flower, you visualize a red sun disk. In the case of generating heat in ones body, to have a comfortable sleep with a hot mattress we need to visualize this sun disk having a certain level of heat in it to get such results, comfortable sleep and heat generated in the body. If you want to have a very clear mind and clarity of the visualizations and meditations we need to visualize the sun disk emanating much brightness, sparking with huge amounts of light. On this sun disk, we need to put ourselves sleeping before going to deep sleep. We visualize ourselves as Vajrayogini with no bone ornaments, without any implements taken into our hands. We visualize Vajrayogini having her head pointing to the north directions. In the case of the four petals, we visualize on the northern petal a sun and moon disk, and on top of that our root guru. We could also visualize our root guru as Vajradharma, sitting in cross-legged position. We put our head into the lap of root Vajradharma. We have right arm put under our head, in the lap of our guru. The important thing is that we need to have a clear visualization of our house being a dharma source.
Then in the dharma source we have to visualize ourselves sleeping on the lotus flower pointing our head towards north, face facing west, and right hand under our head. If we sleep with such clear visualization, it has its own effects, benefits, as protection from external forces. In the case of doing the practice of sleeping yoga of completion stage with no signs, with no significance, we visualize the syllable BAM in the heart of ourselves as Vajrayogini. This syllable BAM emanates huge amounts of rays of lights, going to all directions. These rays touch all the environments and beings therein, all phenomena, and then all phenomena dissolves into emptiness, and finally all this dissolves into us as rays of lights. Then we have to dissolve ourselves from top and bottom, gradually, reduce us smaller and smaller, dissolve, into the syllable BAM. This syllable BAM dissolves from its bottom park, the bottom part of BAM dissolves to the middle, then to upper part, then upper part melts into the drop on top, and this drop gets smaller and smaller, and vanishes to the flame above BAM. Then this flame gradually gets smaller and smaller and vanishes into emptiness, and theres nothing. At this time, we should try to generate a deep understanding of emptiness, ultimate reality of phenomena. With this, we should try to feel a great amount of bliss within us; we have to generate the non-dual emptiness-bliss combination. We should try to sleep in this non-dual state of emptiness and bliss. If we manage to do this it will have its own effects, protecting us from external obstacles and forces. In the sutras, its said that emptiness is the strongest and greatest protection. Theres no stronger protection than meditation on emptiness. Further, during the generation stage practice of sleeping yoga, whenever we sleep and wake up from this sleep, somewhere between, we have to try to generate a huge sense of respect and faith in our guru. We also have to generate, maintain a strong clarity in visualizing the house as the dharma source, and ourselves as the deity Vajrayogini, and the petals, and guru, all this we have to maintain with good clarity, and maintain a strong faith and respect into the guru Vajradharma, and all our root gurus. The benefits and result of the sleeping practice are vast. In our daily lives, whenever we sleep we have afflictions, strong ones. The state of sleeping becomes non-virtuous. It becomes a cause of bringing us suffering. Most of the time, we sleep without any specific afflictions and virtuous thoughts are not arising, in this state, all our time sleeping is neutral, not virtuous and not nonvirtuous. The purpose of doing the sleeping yoga is to convert sleeping into a dharma practice, a virtuous deed. This is a very fruitful practice; especially the practice of generation stage sleep yoga will result in achieving the various realizations related to generation stage. In the case of sleeping of the completion stage, signless yoga, if we do this properly, this will generate various energies in ourselves, it will create the cause to achieve clear light and the mixing of the various death stage and clear light stages. This is also something that ripens our mind to be able to have that level of achievements done. Further, the practice of signless sleeping yoga creates a lot of merit and causes to achieve the dharmakaya body. We need to sleep every day, if we do the sleeping this way, by practicing the two various sleeping yogas, we could convert the daily activities of sleeping to a dharma activity. This would be very meaningful. Of the two different yogas, sleeping state and sleeping yoga, first we discussed the sleeping yoga. Actually, you might think that in general in life we wake up and then sleep, why discuss sleeping yoga first? This is due to the time.
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Because generally we have various sets of phenomena, appearance and emptiness, skillful methods and wisdom, father and mother, illusory body and clear light. These are four different sets of dual phenomena. Generally, these could be divided to day and night phenomena. Appearance, father, is skillful methods; the illusory body belongs to the day category. Emptiness, wisdom, mother, and clear light belongs to the night category. It seems these time divisions are done in this way, allocated this way. The Vajrayogini practice belongs to the mother tantra, and it emphasizes clear light, wisdom. Thus, it belongs to the night category. This is the reason we start the practice with the sleeping yoga. In our daily lives, if we begin a big project, a big activity, we will definitely try to check the date when its more suitable to start the project. Usually the beginning of the year starts in January. When practitioners wants to carry on various dharma practitioners, for example do the practice of a long life deity to get a long life, they might begin it during the increasing time of the moon month, and try to do it during day time, during the morning. The time has also various significances, different energy forces related to the time to do the practice properly, how to do the practice most effectively. The dakinis roam various places and go to various parts of the world in the nighttime. If we begin our Vajrayogini practice at nighttime when the dakinis move around in the world, it would be very fruitful and effective to have realizations swiftly acquired, have the blessings received, and have a practice gone smoothly with no obstructions.
Waking Yoga
The sleeping yoga practice is first of the eleven yogas of Vajrayogini. There are two types of sleeping yogas we could do, generation and completion stage, and the same will appear in the second yoga of wake state. Here we also have two yogas. To do the practice of wakeup yoga, first as soon as we wake up from sleeping yoga we must not wake up in an ordinary style. Instead, we should try to wake up very differently, visualize dakinis and heroes singing various songs, Vajrayogini mantras, reveal the meanings of emptiness (vajra songs), they sing these to wake us up. As a result, we wake up and as soon as we wake up we look at the guru, to further enhance the respect and appreciation and belief and devotion in our guru. Once again we have to improve, enhance the clarity of the visualization of the dharma source and ourselves as the deity Vajrayogini. When we wake up, we need to wake up differently, when we fell fall asleep we didnt have any implements and such, when we wake up its the same but we visualize the bone ornaments are put on us. We wake up on the sun disk, and we do three prostrations to the guru Vajradharma, with a strong respect and appreciation, and sense of faith. As a result of our three prostrations that we did, the guru dissolves, melts into rays of light, and these rays come towards us and finally enters into our body and gets dissolve into the syllable BAM at the heart level. As part of this dissolve, the syllable BAM in our heart gains brightness and clarity, and sparkles stronger than before. In the case of the signless sleeping yoga of completion stage, when we wake up, from nowhere, from emptiness, in the form of an empty sky, a huge mass of clouds will appear. Similarly, from emptiness you suddenly appear as the deity Vajrayogini, having the reality source, lotus petal and so forth, visualized. This is how you need to carry on the wakeup yoga.
After wakeup from sleeping yoga, the first important thing is to resolve not to waste any moment of time, this year, this month, this day, this hour, this minute, this second, never waste any moment. This is very, very, valuable to me for carry on the practice. You need carry on this dharma practice. After this, when you put on various clothes, such as shirt and trousers, you visualize that you offer various ornaments to the deity Vajrayogini, such as bone ornaments, leg ornaments, hand ornaments, and so forth, offered to Vajrayoginis body. We visualize this way -- during the day we need to carry on the practice, we need to put on clothes in the morning. If we image this way, then it would be very fruitful and will bring us much merit imagining ourselves as Vajrayogini when we offer the clothes to Vajrayogini. This is a great source of merit. The practice of wakeup yoga will create the base; ripen the mind to carry the mind to the mixing of dream state and sambogakaya of an enlightened being. Also, theres another result, ripening of the mind experience with the proper meditation of the mixing of nirmanakaya and wakeup state. We could create a lot of positive karma, mental energies, that will ripen later. The practice of wakeup yoga is a very specific cause of achieving sambogakaya of an enlightened being. This is the second of the eleven yogas of Vajrayogini.
Yoga of Tasting Nectar

The third yoga of Vajrayogini is to taste the nectar. To taste the nectar, we need to take nectar, put it on our tongue, and taste it. This is the substitution of taking the bath in the lower tantras. In the highest tantras theres no emphasis of taking a real bath, here tasting the nectar is the substitution. When we talk about tasting nectar, we have to first understand that we need nectar pills to make an inner offering. Its important to have a proper nectar pill. When we talk about proper nectar pills, there are many various nectar pills (how they were created). In past some practitioners created nectar pills by putting all the substances and nectars, they used real meats, real nectars. To a beginner, its not advisable to go with such pills, might be too strong for us, this might have a negative effect. Usually, we put substituting substances for the five meats and five nectars when creating the nectar pills, and then we have them blessed by proper rituals, proper mantras, and recitation of mantras done as described in the tantras. Its important to acquire a properly created nectar pill. Usually it is said that the nectar pills created from the Sakya tradition are good, and also pills from the Tashi Lungpo monastery, or then prepared properly, blessed with proper rituals and proper amount of mantras done. When we talk about taste the nectar, the text says that if we have more numbers of nectar pills, we could take three nectar pills each day at each session, in three sessions nine pills. It depends on the quantity of the nectar pills the practitioner has. Usually nectar pills are very rare, in this case we put the nectar pills into liquid, and we taste the nectar liquid directly. In this case we need to hold the nectar skull cup in right hand. In the center of the cup is a dharma source pointing tip towards us, and two tips left and right, and we need to visualize OM at the tip towards us, and AH on the right tip, and HUM on the left tip. We visualize that the nectar in this triangle shape is the real essence of all the enlightened beings, the non-dual bliss and emptiness. Then we take the nectar with the left hand ring finger, a drop of nectar, and visualize this nectar is in the nature of pristine wisdom of enlightened beings, non-dual emptiness and bliss.
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We taste this drop by putting it on our tongue. As a result, of this we have to visualize that this nectar fills the whole body of us being Vajrayogini. It goes directly to the heart level and melts, dissolves to BAM, and out of BAM it emanates rays of light, and clears all impurities, grossness of our physical build-up. Our body is full of the essence, and we are being satisfied, feeling a huge bliss and joy as our body fills up with huge quantities without any grossness. As a result, we visualize we have huge bliss, wisdom of non-dual bliss and emptiness filling our body. The benefits of tasting nectar are numerous. The main benefit is to purify all downfalls. Also, various obstacles are pacified. Obstructive forces are no longer existent, and we get a long life from tasting the nectar, and we could also be free from various physical and mental ailments, be free from getting old, the aging process is reduced, minimized. With taking the nectar each and every day we reduce growing gray hair and the growth of various old age appearances. For this we need to taste the nectar each and every day without interrupts and breaks. These are benefits very clearly taught in the tantra of the deity.
Innumerable Yoga
The fourth yoga of the eleven yogas of the generation stage of Vajrayogini is a signless yoga. In the signless yoga we first need to have the various substances of samaya to carry the practice. Having these collected, made available to us, we need to put out the mattress where we carry the practice. It should be a little bit higher at the back, lower in front. The tantra says that under the mattress draw a crossed vajra, but we dont recommend it as deities hold crossed vajras in the hand, so we should avoid disrespect doing this. We dont put the sign the crossed vajra. Instead we put a swastika sign. There are two different signs, one clock-wise, one counter-clock-wise. Here in the Tibetan Buddhism practice the swastika should circle clock-wise, if counter-clockwise it would be a swastika of the Hindu or other faiths. Then we put kusha grass or general grass with lot of joints (crab grass). The special issue with kusha grass is that kusha grass is known to have special quality of purifying the impurities and various obscurations. If we put the kusha grass under the mattress it will purify the energies and bring us good energies to purify the impurities. The case with joints is that this grass has the quality of having a very long life. On top of this meditation seat we should sit in the seven-point Vairocana posture with seven attributes, seven qualities, seven parts of the posture. The first posture is sitting cross-legged; the second is having ones backbone of spine put in a very straight position, like an arrow. The third is to put the two hands into the meditative posture. The fourth is to maintain our shoulder levels in a natural position, even, we should not sit in a posture that is tight, and we should put our shoulders in a relaxed posture. The fifth posture is to bow down our head a little bit, put our neck down a little bit. The sixth is to maintain a posture of having our teeth and lips in a normal posture, we should not put them in a place of intense activity, we should maintain a nature posture of teeth and natural flexibility of our lips. The seventh is to point our eyes on the tip of the nose, and take a very special seating posture. These are the ways that the Buddha Vairocana sits. These are known as the seven point postures of sitting when you practice dharma practice meditations.
Refuge
After having this seating posture, we need to do the refuge practice. To do this its good to have an object of refuge visualized, a field of refuge. Usually the enlightened beings are all pervading, theres no place, time, direction where there are no enlightened beings, so its quite ok to do the practice even if we dont visualize the field of refuge. But as we are beginners it would be good for us to have a refuge field visualized; we would have a strong refuge done if we visualize a refuge field. There are many ways to do this, to be done in a more detailed way, or in a brief way. First, I would like to present how its done in a detailed way. First, we need to visualize the place we are doing the meditation is not a small and congested place, rather it being very spacious and open place where we do the practice. We visualize that this vast space is made of lapis lazuli (blue stone), on this floor we visualize we see various designs of gold, such as the eight auspicious signs and other signs created by gold and lapis lazuli. Even if this floor is created from lapis lazuli, it has a very special quality, soft as a foam mattress. If we take back our feet the floor will come back as a foam mattress. This place where we do the practice has all the facilities and qualities of a pure land. After doing this visualization we visualize at eyebrow level a huge throne made of various precious stones, further supported by eight great snow lions. On top of this precious throne we visualize a huge variegated lotus with four petals, each to each direction, in center a sun and moon disk. You could also visualize your guru, but usually we visualize Chakrasamvara with consort in the center of this lotus flower, inseparable with your guru. Encircling the deity Chakrasamvara are all the lineage gurus from whom you have received the teachings directly, and the gurus that taught your gurus. On the front petal, you visualize Vajrayogini on a sun disk, various deities of the highest yoga tantra encircle Vajrayogini. And there are rows of other tantra deities, a circle of yoga tantra deities, outside circle of performance tantra yoga deities, outside circle of action yoga deities, all encircling Vajrayogini. On the right lotus petal you visualize the Buddha Shakyamuni, encircled by thousands Buddhas of the fortunate eon, eight Tathagatas of the Medicine Buddha practice, and the 35 confession buddhas, and various other sambogakaya and nirmanakaya buddhas encircling Shakyamuni Buddha on the right petal. And on the left petal you visualize Bodhisattva Manjushri encircled by sons of the buddhas, victorious ones, bodhisattvas known as the great sons of the glorious one, encircling that a huge gathering of bodhisattvas, dakas and dakinis, all beings with high realizations; all of sangha jewel, the third jewel of the three jewels. On the back lotus petal of the lotus petal we visualize the various text books, such as Chakrasamvara root tantra and commentaries of this tantra, and various teachings of the buddha in forms of various scriptures and books. We visualize teachings of Mahayana and Hinayana, also realizations of all the enlightened beings and all the high practitioners, visualized in forms as books and scriptures on the back petal. All the various things we visualize on the lotus petal is the field of refuge. We need to visualize very clearly, bright, sparking with brightness, we should not visualize them unclear or vanishing into darkness, we should try to create clarity, sparking brightness.
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Encircling all these enlightened beings we visualize various dharma protectors, owner of the cemetery and other protectors such as the six-arm Mahakala, four-face Mahakala, and other protectors, supramundane protectors (not mundane), very clear, sparking in clarity and brightness. This is now we do the detailed field of refuge. The second way of visualizing the refuge field is to visualize a huge triangle in front of us, at eyebrow level, huge triangle. Inside it is the whole mandala of Chakrasamvara with all the sixty two deities of the mandala. We visualize the whole mandala and deity clear, sparking with clarity, we take these deities as enlightened beings, as buddhas, and bodhisattvas encircling these deities. To get the two mental qualities of overcoming obscurations and the wisdom aspect of the beings, we need to visualize them as a dharma jewel, and all these things together makes three jewels. In front of that we take refuge. This is the second way of doing the refuge field visualizations. The brief visualization of refuge is done this way: we visualize a huge throne made of precious stones in front of us. Then we visualize our root guru as Buddha Vajradharma or Hero Vajradharma, we could do it either way, which is more suitable. We should have a clear visualization of Buddha Vajradharma or Hero Vajradharma, and we should have deep thoughts that the body of the Buddha/Hero Vajradharma is the Sangha refuge object. The Sangha jewel, the speech aspect of Vajradharma is the dharma object of refuge, and the mind aspect of Vajradharma is the Buddha object of refuge. When we do this visualization it is the known as the visualization of all the things condensed into one. Here it refers to all the jewels of refuge contained into one visualization, Buddha/Hero Vajradharma, non-dual with our root guru.
Question: Rinpoche said this is a secret practice. We are doing a group practice and we need to let outside people know about it? Answer: You do the practice together, all the persons practicing together are bound to keep the secrecy, if you share the secret together, as a club you belong to, you could share the secret. When we talk about the secret, we keep it secret from those who dont do the practice. You do the practice with others already empowered to do this, permitted by gurus. Usually when we do secret dharma practices, we need to keep it secret from those not yet suitable vessels for the practice. For example, due to this all thanka paintings have a curtain to put over them. Nowadays the curtain is not used, its just reduced to a symbol, its difficult to say what a secret practice means, but its not difficult, its very clear it has to be kept secret from those not yet suitable to do the practice. When the disciples takes a pledge, we recite that you must not reveal the secrets to those never entered the mandala, never empowered into the deity, and also those that have been empowered but dont have any faith any more. These are the persons you should keep it secret from. If someone is no longer keeping any faith in the practice, its not good for the person to do the practice.
Question: We sent out a message on the newsletter to do the practice, was this OK, as the newsletter was sent to 2500 people? Answer: Its very difficult to say, in todays world everything is universalized, but individual practitioners sense of view is always secret to others, as everything is universalized its hard to know if you reveal a secret, but from an individual point of view you keep it secret.
Question: Could you explain the qualities brought down by the Sakya lineage of Vajrayogini and the Gelug lineage? Are there any different qualities? Answer: Regarding the lineage, presently there might be two lineages, Sakya and Gelug, but the Gelug lineage of Vajrayogini also goes back to the Sakya lineage. The great Tsongkhapa most probably received the empowerment from Sakya masters. As far as we go beyond the Tsongkhapa receiving the Vajrayogini empowerment, we could say we belong to the same lineage. But after that, the lineage has been broken to two parts, and there might have been slight changes in the practice, as there are also qualities that the great Tsongkhapa and other great masters have tried to restored to previous levels, lost by other traditions, through realizations. Even in the Gelug we have different lineages, one maintained by Jamyang Dorje to Bakula, thats one common lineage, and then later there was another lineage continued through great masters of Ganden, and then father and son of Ngulchu (area in Tibet, Ngulchu Dharmabhadra and son). The most important is that Doringja is the most important master of Vajrayogini; he is a great master who further enhanced and developed the Vajrayogini practice. In the lineage prayers, he is address as a person with unequaled kindness such a description is given due to the unique contributions to the Vajrayogini practice. Question: Is it reasonable to say that after Naropa, the realizations of further Vajrayogini masters enhanced the practice; so in future, a Lati Rinpoche reaching might be another branch of the Vajrayogini practice? Answer: To some extent, today I do the initiation and empowerment to a big group, and give the commentary to the practice to a huge group, so it might be a sizable contribution Im doing to the practice of Vajrayogini.
Question: Whats the difference with Sutra teachings on refuge based on reason, and Vajrayogini where strong faith leads to realizations? Answer: Faith, very strong faith, has a big role in getting realizations in the Vajrayogini practice. To cultivate that strong faith and strong belief in the Vajrayogini practice and Vajrayogini herself, we apply the method of establishing the validity of the teachings, explaining how it originated from the ultimate source, Vajradhara, and after that how beneficial it is to do the Vajrayogini practice through getting the attainments that past
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siddhis have attained through Vajrayogini practice. Besides that, we also read the verses from the root tantra of Chakrasamvara, the verse from the 47th chapter in which the great Vajradhara says that just with mantra recitation and sadhana you could achieve great attainments of Vajrayogini. We explained these to make sure the disciple could generate a strong sense of belief doing this, using these facts as a strong reason to have a belief in the power of Vajrayogini and the effectiveness in the Vajrayogini practice. You need to apply these reasons to generate a strong belief in the Vajrayogini, and then you should do the practice, and carry on it further for more realizations. Questions: Could Rinpoche explain the difference between the father and mother tantras concerning channels and the completion stage? Answer: This is maybe a misunderstanding; its the practice of the mother tantra of Chakrasamvara and mother (consort) of Chakrasamvara, the father deity being the practice, or then the mother deity being the practice. If you practice father Chakrasamvara you visualize the deities outside the channels, in various places on your body. In the case of the Vajrayogini practice, the mother deity of the Chakrasamvara practice, the body mandala practice of Vajrayogini is visualized in the central channel. In the case of Heruka, father deity, you visualize the various deities in parts of your body, instead of in a part of your body (heart). In the case of Vajrayogini you visualize the whole body mandala inside the heart level of your body. The first one is known as the visualization of the deity at the outer tip of the channels, and the second inside the tips of the channels. It has nothing to do with the channels; its how the mandala is visualized, heart level, or various parts of your body.
Day Two September 11 2000

For the benefit of all sentient beings, to help them all attain the great enlightenment, Buddhahood, I would like to attain the quick realizations of Vajrayogini. For that I need to do the Vajrayogini tantra practices, and today I would like to listen to the Vajrayogini commentary teachings, which such a motivation I will listen to the teachings. We discussed how to visualize the field of refuge, the object of refuge, yesterday, how to do it elaborately, detailed way, and how to do it more moderately, and also in a brief way. Further, I would like to excuse for mistranslation, its not signless yoga, its the yoga of immeasurable, the pronunciation in Tibetan looks the same, and Im sorry for that (translator). When we carry on the practice of refuge, visualize the field o refuge, we need to understand, have a deep understanding of the qualifications, the reasons we take refuge into the field of refuge. The capabilities of the refuge field to save us and guide us on the path to cease samsaric existence. We need to understand the capabilities why the refuge field is able to help ourselves getting liberated. The field of refuge itself is not part of samsaric existence; they are free from sufferings of samsara. Also, they know the method how to cease samsaric existence with its roots. The compassion of the field of refuge is for all sentient beings, there is no sentient being that is closer to the refuge field compared with others, theres no discrimination present. As theres no discrimination the field has a strong dynamic force for helping all sentient beings, equally. Another quality is that they equally help sentient beings, even if some of them do offerings to them, do benefits, and others do not do any offerings, but the field of merit never discriminates sentient beings based on the activities. These are some of the refuge field qualities. We need to have a deep understanding of the qualities. If we want to get deeper details, we could take lamrim teachings and understand the various qualities of the refuge field, driving us to have a stronger reliance on the refuge field. The refuge field is something we could take refuge to, they have the capability to save us from samsaric problems and sufferings, if we take refuge in this field we could make the purpose of taking refuge, due to these reasons we need to cultivate, to generate a strong sense of refuge into the field of refuge. To have a refuge cultivated deep in our mind, we need some things in place, otherwise its hard to cultivate a deep refuge. Especially in the Vajrayogini practice we need to generate, cultivate unique, uncommon refuge in our minds. For this we need to have three causes or conditions in place, otherwise we cant cultivate this quality of refuge. The three conditions we need to have for a quality refuge generated in our mind are: 1. Strong sense of fear of samsaric existence 2. Sense of compassion generated towards fellow sentient beings 3. Strong sense of belief, faith in the triple gem with an understanding that the triple gem is only able to liberate us from samsaric existence
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To cultivate the first cause we cultivate the thought that we think about innumerable samsaric births we have taken in past, since beginningless times we have taken birth in samsara. The births we have taken are uncountable; we have to try to see this. What type of samsaric sufferings and pains we have gone through? If we contemplate this deeply, we come to a realization that there might be no type of samsaric suffering or pain we have not experienced in these births in samsaric existence! From this sense we have to understand that we have gone through huge pains and sufferings in samsara in all these samsaric births of ourselves. If we dont take effort to get rid of samsaric existence now we will suffer the same thing in innumerable future lives. If we think deeply, contemplate deeply on this, we come to a strong sense of fear of samsaric existence. We need to have done such contemplations again and again, and we need to cultivate a strong sense of fear. After having this done we have the cause cultivated in ourselves. We need to apply the same method, same style of thinking towards fellow sentient beings. They are also taking birth in samsaric existence since beginningless time, they will definitely will go through huge amounts of suffering unless they achieve enlightenment in this life then they will encounter similar huge amounts of sufferings in future lives. With such an understanding, deep feeling, we need to put our efforts to cultivate a strong sense of compassion towards these sentient beings, feel pity about them. If we were capable of doing this, practicing this way, we would have the second cause, quality, of refuge, cultivated in our minds. The third part is that we need to recall the qualities of the triple gem, try to know, need to do a deep contemplation on each quality of the refuge field. After done this for a long time we will come to generate a strong belief in the qualities of the three jewels. As we come to belief, have a strong sense of belief in the capabilities of the three jewels delivering us from samsara, the next step is to have a quality thought developed in our minds. After having these three causes, conditions for a quality refuge generated in our mind, what we need to do is to visualize all sentient beings encircling ourselves. On our right side we visualize our father and all the other male sentient beings. On the left side, we visualize all female beings lead by our mother, at the front we visualize all our enemies led by the main enemies, and at our back all the relatives lead by our siblings. We should visualize all sentient beings in the aspect of human beings, still suffering from various sufferings in different realms, but here they are visualized in the form of human beings, and all the lands are covered by sentient beings encircling us. We have to take refuge into the three jewels. The thought of refuge is to rely completely on the three jewels to overcome the samsaric existence and shortcomings is the real refuge. We need to have requests from the depth of our heart to the triple gem to deliver us and all sentient beings from samsaric existence -- this is also refuge. This is the real refuge. Also, we could recite the words of refuge, but the recitation is not the main refuge, the main refuge must come from our minds, developed deep in our thoughts. The request to the triple gem should be this way, we and all sentient beings, you the triple gem, please deliver us and all sentient beings from all shortcomings and sufferings of samsaric existence, related to peaceful abiding of the lower part. We need to request and rely on the triple gem this way. This is the real refuge.
When we do the refuge practice we must have a very strong mentality on totally counting on the capability and activities of the three jewels, completely rely on them. We much have such strong reliance. For example, it must be like a very serious criminal who is given a death penalty. If he wants to come out from this sentence he needs to rely on a very powerful politician or national leader, in this case the serious criminal if he goes to the powerful leader, what kind of mentality he would have? We have to understand this. This criminal has only one thought, to come out from the major penalty, to get rid of this major sentence, and to get rid of this major sentence he completely has to rely on that leader. In the same way, we also need to have the same kind of mentally when we do the refuge in the triple gem. The refuge must not be mere words from our mouth, like verses and words repeated, it should not be like this, it has to be really meaningful, from the depth of our heart. After having such a strong, real refuge we need to recite the verses of refuge. The first sentence, translated, I and all sentient beings. When we recite this sentence, we have to take special refuge in the gurus. On the center of the visualized lotus, encircling our root guru, are the whole gathering of lineage gurus. We need to focus our refuge into the gurus. When we recite the next sentence, we have to focus our refuge the deities of the four classes of tantra on the front petal and the Buddhas that we have visualized on the right petal. When we recite the third sentence (refuge to pure dharma) we have to focus on the dharma that we have visualized on the back petal, the root tantra of Chakrasamvara and various other scriptures and books, Mahayana books, Tripitaka, and so forth. We focus our refuge on that dharma we have visualized. The fourth sentence (go for refuge to Sangha), when we read this sentence we have to focus our refuge, our mind on the various bodhisattvas on the left petal we have visualized, and also the super-mundane protectors we have visualized encircling the lotus flower. We take refuge into all the beings on the refuge field. We need to do this visualization this way, and when we recite the refuge we also need to visualize that we recite the refuge as a chant master, and all the sentient begins are following us with the refuge verses. The refuge practice is very important and crucial. The refuge is considered to be the gateway to being a Buddhist, the starting point of all Buddhist practices. Unless we have refuge done, we are not considered Buddhists. To make sure that we are real Buddhists, we need to have the refuge done properly, the thought of refuge done deep in our minds. Without this even if we claim that we are very old Buddhists or very pure Buddhists, we wont be Buddhists at all. All the Buddhist practices have the refuge practice as its basis, foundation, so its important to have a quality refuge generate deep in our minds. Further, the refuge practice also includes the practice of renunciation to some extent. The refuge practice is the main practice to keep ourselves away from the wrong path, wrong religious faiths and beliefs. Due to the importance of the refuge practice we really need to have a quality thought of refuge cultivated deep in our minds.
Bodhichitta
After refuge cultivation we need to cultivate bodhichitta, the mind that attains enlightenment for the sake of other beings. If we dont have this mind cultivated, whatever practice we do is not a Mahayana practice. To make sure we are not Mahayanists just by words we need to practice bodhichitta. Vajrayogini practice is not just a Mahayana practice, it belongs to the highest yoga tantra, you cant do this without cultivating bodhichitta mind.
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We further need to have a special motivation, a unique motivation of attaining Buddhahood in a very specific way, not just the common bodhichitta motivation is enough to carry the practice. For this reason we have a special motivation, or a unique motivation that we need for doing the Vajrayogini practice. The special motivation that we need to have for the Vajrayogini done is cultivated this way: first we need to do a deep contemplation on innumerable births of ourselves in samsara from beginningless times, and we need to understand that samsaric existence is painful and unwanted, full of pain, and theres nothing to get attracted to in this existence. Having such and understanding, we need to contemplate on fellow sentient beings, what do they need, and what they dont want. We will understand that all sentient beings dont want unhappiness and suffering, and want happiness and a state free from suffering. As all the sentient beings look into this state beings free from suffering., how to achieve that and who will help them achieve them this state, and who has the responsibility to do this? If we contemplate on this carefully, in a subtle way, we will definitely understand that we are responsible to let them have a free comfortable state free from suffering. Why do we need to take this task? Because all sentient beings have served us as our mothers in uncountable eons, really took incomparable care of us, the same way as our mother in this life. As they have taken care of us in an incomparable way, a special way. We ought to repay their kindness, theres no way we could run away from repaying their kindness. As we need to repay their kindness for a very long time they have served us, we have to do something, something we have to do, what is this? That is the state of being free from samsaric sufferings. Thats all the sentient beings need. Theres no sentient beings that likes to have suffering, and does not want a comfortable state, free from samsaric sufferings? This is very common, all sentient beings want to be free from samsaric suffering, so we need to provide them with such facilities, that state of being free from samsaric suffering, a state they could be happy and comfortable all the time. Where is that state? Thats only available if the sentient beings achieve full enlightenment. How could we help them? We need to do contemplation here. If we deeply think this way we understand that presently we cant help them, as we cant make an comfortable state to us, how could we provide this to them? What we need to do, to achieve, is enlightenment. If we have not achieved full enlightenment, we cant provide all the good facilities to others. For doing this I need to achieve great enlightenment, and after that I will lead all sentient beings from suffering. For this purpose, I carry on the Vajrayogini tantra practice. We need to cultivate this kind of specific, unique motivation, deep in our minds before we begin the Vajrayogini practice. The words for the special motivation read in the text: I will attain the complete Buddhahood This first sentence, when we recite this, we need to cultivate the relative bodhichitta, prayer bodhichitta mind. The relative bodhichitta has two motivations as mental factors arising with this. Bodhichitta is the primary mind, and it has to arise, to be generated with various mental factors. The most important thing is that bodhichitta has to be generated with two aspirations: for the benefit of other beings, and aspiration for the benefit of oneself. The aspiration aspiring for achievement for other beings, Buddhas achieve sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya, and the means for oneself is the means to achieve dharmakaya. These are the various aspirations we need to cultivate when we cultivate bodhichitta. The first sentence deals with the praying bodhichitta. The second part, I practice Vajrayogini this deals with generating entering bodhichitta, the bodhichitta that is enhanced from the praying bodhichitta, where the practitioner really enters the various bodhisattva activity
trainings. By reading these two sentences, we cultivate two kinds of bodhichitta. Also, these two sentences also have the four immeasurable practices combined. When we first recite the words, all sentient beings, this contains the meaning, hidden meaning of equanimity of all sentient beings, generating the immeasurable equanimity towards all sentient beings. When we recite release from the ocean of samsaric suffering, this has a hidden meaning cultivating compassion, immeasurable compassion. Here we have to feel, have a sense of bring out all sentient beings from samsara. When we recite attain the state of fully accomplished Buddhahood we have the hidden meaning of practicing immeasurable joy. We want to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of sentient beings; we want to have that state of enlightenment, free from all obscurations, for the benefit of sentient beings. When we recite for that purpose I am practicing the graduated part of Vajrayogini it has the hidden meaning of immeasurable loving kindness. The four immesurables are in the text combined in these two sentences. These two sentences have a vast meaning. This English sadhana, the short one, we have the request for blessings done before the special motivation. But in a real motivation its better to do this after the special motivation. In the longer sadhana it comes in this order, and it makes more sense if we do the practice this way. The verses of requesting the gurus and precious field of refuge to bless our mind streams come after the special motivation is done. When we do this request to our gurus and the precious field of refuge, we need to request them. When we contemplate and do the meditation, we think please bless me and all sentient beings. After such a strong request to the gurus and the refuge field they emanate, produce huge amount of nectar and rays of light from their bodies. All this nectar and rays of light pervade, spread to all directions, to all samsaric environments, and as a result when it spreads in samsara it touches the bodies of all the sentient beings. As a result, all the sentient beings have all their impurities purified, body, speech, and mind, and they attain various realizations such as non-dual emptiness and wisdom bliss, five great wisdoms of enlightened beings and so forth. As a result all sentient beings fly away as if a gathering of birds and you threw a stone into the gathering all birds would fly away, in the same way, in the same style, all sentient beings fly away to various pure lands, you could also visualize that all sentient beings fly to the pure land of Vajrayogini, Kechara. After requesting blessings done, its good to have the field of refuge dissolve into oneself, the practitioner. In this short sadhana its not present, but its good to have it done this way as its very clear in the long sadhana. If you do it this way, it has its own significance in forms of blessings. When we visualize the dissolving of the refuge field, it has a certain order. First we visualize the Sangha field of refuge melt into rays of light and dissolve into our crown level, as white rays of light, and gurus body blessings come to our crown level and enter our crown level. If we visualize OM at the crown level, we could also visualize the light merge into OM. In the case of the body vajra at the crown level we could also visualize the lights melt into the body vajra. The body vajra and syllable OM stands for the same thing, body of enlightened beings. These are the various ways to do this visualization. We have to visualize the Sangha refuge field, Manjushri encircled by various bodhisattvas and various supramundane protectors encircling all the enlightened beings on the petals. The encircling supramundane protectors and the bodhisattvas we have visualize on the left petal, we have to dissolve them to white light, and bring this white down, coming towards ourselves, and finally dissolving into our crown, OM, body vajra.
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In the case of the dharma refuge, we have to visualize the dharma that various dharma text books we have visualized on the back petal, various other texts, root tantra of Chakrasamvara and so forth. This stands for the dharma aspect, all these dissolve to red light, and these red rays of light come to us, and finally in nature of the speech aspect of our gurus, come us gradually and finally dissolve to our throat level, or AH at our throat, or the speech vajra if we have visualized such a thing. At this time, we have to visualize the dissolution of the red rays of light into our throat level. And finally we visualize the dissolution of Buddha refuge field. When we visualize this we visualize the right and front petal and lotus petal, all enlightened beings, such as guru encircled by lineage gurus and Vajrayogini encircled by various yidams, meditational deities, and Shakyamuni Buddha encircled by other buddhas. All these melt, dissolve to blue rays of light, and these blue rays of light, in nature the third aspect of our root guru, come down to us and dissolve at our heart level, into the syllable HUM. In the case we visualize the heart vajra it dissolves into the heart vajra. These are various ways to dissolve the field of refuge into the practitioner. As a result, we have to feel, visualize the blessings of body, speech, mind of the whole field of refuge entering us, we receive a huge amount of blessings from the refuge field.
Vajrasattva Practice
After done the request for blessings from the refuge field and guru, now if we want to do the practice of Vajrasattva; we could do this at this point. We could insert the Vajrasattva practice here with the 100-syllable mantra. To activate the energy of the deity Vajrayogini, to achieve something from the Vajrayogini practice we need to have two qualities: purification of obscurations and impurities, and accumulation of merits as much as possible. These two are main factors in achieving something in the Vajrayogini practice. Its very clear, even the great Tsongkhapa was advised by Manjushri to make requests to deity and guru, non-duality of guru and deity is one of the main factors, main part that we need for achieving various high realizations. Then we need to do the proper meditation for whatever achievement we want, do it very accurately, visualization and meditation, this for what we want to achieve. The third is to do proper purifications and accumulate as much merit as possible. This was taught by the great Manjushri to Tsongkhapa to achieve any realization in practices. Not having any of these practices applied, implemented, in our practice, we wont get far, and we need these factors applied in our practice.
Guru Yoga
After this we do the guru yoga practice. Guru yoga, fifth yoga, is very important, in the sense that we need the blessings of the guru received to have any type of realizations in our practice. To have the blessings of the guru received we need to have guru yoga done property. If not done properly theres no way to receive the blessings of the guru, so this is very important to do it effectively in the Vajrayogini practice. Here the great yogi of Tibet says that whatever realization we achieve, cultivate in our mind, is a result of various levels of faith we try to cultivate in our gurus, in ourselves.
Gurus are the root of all realizations, and all high achievements, understanding this importance of having a proper guru yoga practice done we need to have a commitment related to the guru and guru yoga kept very clean, very perfectly. We need to check if our guru yoga practice becomes the right practice, are our gurus inseparable to deities, and deities inseparable to our gurus? If we could recognize our gurus that way, and deities that way, inseparable to gurus, then we are having a good guru yoga practice our guru yoga practice is on the right track. Guru yoga is one of the most important factors to do a meaningful and fruitful practice of tantra, especially Vajrayogini. Generally, the tantric practice is more profound and swift than the other practices, the highest yoga practices are even more profound and swift than common tantra practices. And Vajrayogini, as we discussed yesterday, is even swifter than other practices. The profoundness and quick quality of the general tantra, and highest yoga tantra, and especially Vajrayogini, depends on various factors. The main profoundness is proper practice of lamrim, three principal aspects of the path. If we have a quality practice of this done, then we do various tantric practices, then its very profound, and a quick way to achieve realizations and enlightenment. If we dont have a good foundation, a good base of lamrim practice, if we do Vajrayogini practice or highest yoga practices or other tantra practices, there are no realizations happening. We need to do guru yoga as lifeblood of tantra practices. This is one of the main factors of swiftness and profoundness of tantric practices and highest yoga tantra, and especially the Vajrayogini practice. To have a profoundness and swiftness of the tantric practice, highest yoga tantra, and Vajrayogini maintained in the same quality we need to have a very good practice of lamrim done. We need to have a good guru yoga practice done.
Question: The tasting the nectar yoga, is this done first thing in the morning, or later? Answer: In the case someone is in retreat, doing three or four sessions, its good to have the nectar tasted before each and every session. During self-initiation, its good to do it once in the sadhana.
Question: The refuge visualization and petals, right and left petal, is it from our point, or the deity point of view? Answer: Its from the side of deity, the right petal is in our case your left, and left petal is in your case the right one.
Question: When we visualize as Vajrayogini, just the shape of Vajrayogini or ourselves being Vajrayogini, and the guru is visualized as Vajrayogini or an emanation of Vajrayogini? Answer: Actually this will be described later. But we will make it clear here. When we visualize us to the deity Vajrayogini we dont do a gross physical transformed directly, one physical body to another. What we first do is to dissolve our gross physical body to emptiness, we try to break this down to emptiness, we have to visualize that the body,
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speech, and mind of us vanish to emptiness, the ultimate reality of body, speech, mind of all existing phenomena. From this empty space we visualize various seed syllables appearing, and these are then transformed into forms, and the deity. And this deity does not have a gross form, we visualize them having shape and color, creating of rays of light, not having bones and flesh, its a structure of rays of light. Nowadays they do such structures with technology, laser holograms. The guru is visualized that the deity, Vajrayogini, is non-dual to the guru, and Vajrayogini resides in Kechara is not inseparable from the deity you have visualized, and the guru is also inseparable from Vajrayogini you have visualized.
Question: When we visualize the merit, is the merit field actually there with us, do we believe this, is this true? Answer: To have real blessings we need to have a real belief in the field of refuge. If we visualize the field of merit as a hologram or a movie we are watching, then we wont get much blessings from the field. So we have to have a very strong belief, sense of faith in having real enlightened beings in front of us, it depends on our faith and belief how much blessings we get.
Question: Its easy to have strong faith when Rinpoche is explaining, but after many months alone practicing, the faith is smaller, what to do? Answer: To encounter this problem, we need to recollect the memories of being in front of our gurus. We need to try to keep the feeling of being in front of our gurus alive even if the guru is not there, keep alive with recollecting those memories, remembering those moments and feelings we have to our gurus, and we should try to cultivate strong belief and faith in our gurus, as a field of merit/refuge. The gurus or the field of refuge, whatever it will be, we need to cultivate a strong sense of belief and faith in this refuge field and gurus through keeping the feeling alive through remembering them, having recollection of memories, again and again. If we do this, we will come to have those memories, feelings kept alive, and we will maintain, have those quantities, beliefs, kept alive. In the various texts it says that the amount and quantity and quality we receive from our gurus is not dependent how realized and good practitioner our gurus are, it depends on ourselves. If we have really strong sense of belief, belief, respect in our gurus, we will receive greater amount of blessings from them. If we dont have this strong sense of belief, faith and sense of respect, all these things even if its a highly realized guru we will not get much blessings. To get maximal blessings we need to maximize the belief, faith, respect in our guru and field of refuge.
Question: I did the initiation last night, and yesterday during the session you said the qualifications that Kalachakra did not count, and I dont do continuous practices. What do I do now, should I continue the Vajrayogini practice?
Lati Rinpoche: Have you taken any other initiations than Kalachakra? No. Answer: On this issue, I would like to discuss this tomorrow, make it clear tomorrow.
Question: How far away do we visualize the merit field, and are there any specific sizes for the deities in the merit field? Answer: The distance of the field of refuge must be not too far or too close, it must be the distance of an arm span; if you visualize this distance, its a good distance. As for the deity sizes in the refuge field, its not good to visualize a huge deity or enlightened being. If possible, it would be better to visualize small deities but best to visualize in the size of whatever is suitable for you, what you could maintain. Its not advisable to very vast deities. The most important is what is what is suitable for your mind -- you should visualize that size.
Question: If you do one Vajrayogini meditation practice a day, it is best to do it in the morning or evening? Answer: As I explained yesterday, the movement of dakinis come at night time, commonly it would be good to do the practice at night time, but from the sense of getting exhausted from all the work, if you doze off during the meditation session, in this case its maybe better to use a more suitable time.
After going back home from this session, it would be good to review the topics we have discussed each day. If you do this, then you can maintain and acquire familiarity with various topics we discussed. If you have such familiarity at the sessions we are doing, with revisions, you could recollect this after a long time. This would be very meaningful and fruitful when attending sessions, even in the case you cant remember word-by-word, but I think its not that complicated to do a review of each and every topic that we discussed, if we do the review, that would be very fruitful for you, have it remembered, even after a long time.
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Day Three September 12 2000

For the benefit of sentient beings I want to reach great enlightenment, and for this I carry on the practice of Vajrayogini, and today have a properly practice of Vajrayogini taken, I will listen to the commentary of Vajrayogini, which such a motivation I will listen to the teachings.
Guru Yoga
We are at the guru yoga part, and guru yoga is one of the crucial practices. To do proper guru yoga practice, first we visualize guru in front of us. In front of us at a distance of an arm span we visualize a huge throne made of precious stones, on top of that we visualize a variegated lotus, and on top of that a moon disk, and on top of that our root guru in the aspect of Buddha Vajradharma. The posture of Vajradharma is very clear in the sadhana text. As Rinpoche has explained the postures clearly from before, and its clear in the text, his holy body is red with two hands and two legs, right hand plays damaru of bliss and void, left holds skull cup, katvanga in left hand resting against the shoulder, holy body vibrant in the youth. Vajradharma is non-dual to our root guru, in nature is our root guru, but in appearance or form we visualize him as venerable Vajradharma. We have to have a strong sense that this Vajradharma is a combination or almost an embodiment of all the holy beings, field of refuge, all gurus, all buddhas, all bodhisattvas, all Sangha, as an embodiment of the whole field of refuge. After visualizing the guru this way we have to try to recall all the good qualities of our guru, all the great kindness our gurus have towards us, shown to us. Due to done the contemplation this way we need to cultivate deep respect into the guru Vajradharma, our root guru, and being inseparable. This faith should be like a strong intimate feeling with the guru, feeling so its impossible to separate us from the guru, we need to generate very strong intimacy in our guru, driven by the sense of deep sense of respect and faith, belief to this thing. After that, we have to visualize that the guru is also having a same type of feeling of closeness, feeling of strong intimacy towards us. The gurus strong sense of intimacy is not followed by sense of respect; instead, gurus sense of intimacy is coupled with sense of loving us, sense of feeling happy when he sees us. We have to visualize, or imagine, cultivate the thought this way. In this strong sense of respect and faith and intimacy driven by loving kindness in our guru, the guru dissolves into rays of light from top to bottom, and gradually melts into rays of light, and these rays of light get smaller an smaller, and finally becomes a tiny ray of light, almost the size of a birds egg. After this the guru, rays of light -- in the nature of guru, with this sense of intimacy, huge sense of loving kindness to us -- enters our body through our crown. This ball of light enter into our body and comes down to the level of our heart, and finally dissolves, melts into the syllable BAM visualized at our heart level. As a result of this melting we visualize that the gurus great non-dual wisdom of bliss and emptiness becomes inseparable, mixed, blended with our mind. As a result of this happening, this mixing happening of gurus pristine wisdom and our mind, we attain the state of guru Vajradharma. We have to visualize this way.
Generation as Deity
The guru yoga is the fifth yoga of the eleven yogas of generation stage of Vajrayogini. Its very important, as I explained earlier. The sixth yoga is self-generation as deity. To do this sixth yoga we need to understand how to do the practice of three kayas into the path. The practice of the three kayas is very important, without having the practice of three kayas taken into the path, if we visualize ourselves as the deity, thats almost like generation of a deity taught in the lower tantras. To have a proper practice of the highest yoga tantra done we need to have this method applied whenever we visualize ourselves into the deity. To do this practice, first we need to understand what is the practice of the three kayas taken into the path. Usually in the highest yoga tantra, if we dont take the three kayas into the path, it wont be a valid or ideal generation stage practice. To make sure that the generation practice we do is ideal and valid practice, we have to have the practice of the three kayas taken into the path done. To explain the practice of the three kayas, how to do this as part of the path, first we need to understand what the three kayas are, and what does it stand for? First, we need to understand that there are three different sets, first the base of purification, then the purifying act, and the implements we use to purify the base of purification, and finally the result of the purifying act. When we talk about the base of purification, we are trying to purify our future death, intermediate state and birth. The past and present cant be purified, those have already happened, what has already happened we cant control, cant purify. What we are trying to purify with doing these practices is the future death stage, dying stage, intermediate stage between death and birth, and the process of taking birth. Those are the basis of the purification. The real method, the real power, real implementation that we use to purify these three bases is the completion stage practices. To purify the death stage we have to generate the exemplary clear light and meaning clear light, these are the methods to clear the death stage. The real method to purify the intermediate state, between death and birth, is the practice of the illusory body. When we do the practice of the completion stage, the illusory body of completion stage, thats the real purifying act of purifying the intermediate stage. Then, to purify the birth process we need to implement the practice of illusory body taking the real shape of the deity, the illusory arising into the nirmanakaya aspect of the deity, this is the process or act to purify the birth stage that we have in ordinary life. These are the real implementations that we have to use to purify the three stages. Here in the generation stage practice we dont have these powers generated, we don[t have these powers yet. To have a good energy cultivated to have these real purifying implements or actions cultivated in our mind stream we need to do the three kayas into the path practices even during the generation stage practices. When we do the generation stage practices we need to do the three kayas as a part. This is how it happens. As a result of purification of the three bases we attain the dharmakaya as a result of purifying the death stage, and sambhogakaya of purifying g the intermediate stage, and nirmanakaya of purifying the birth stage. These are the basis of the purification, and the purifying act, and the implements we have to use to purify these bases, and the result, the fruit from the act of purification.
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Its important to understand these things, and with this understanding if we do the three kayas into the path practice it will be more effective, but we do the three kayas practice we dont need to remember all these things. In this brief sadhana provided in sadhana we have the practice of how to do the three kayas, this is part of the sadhana, Rinpoche said this is good. This adjustment is not very suitable, but Rinpoche would like to continue as its provided in the English sadhana. How to take death into the path as dharmakaya, this is a generation stage practice, we do it to have a very strong energy created, exemplary and meaning clear light in completion stage level. When we do this practice we need to enter into the process of death. Here we have to enter into a visualization of various appearances, of signs, to ourselves. When earth energy melts into the water energy, we visualize the appearance of a mirage-like appearance. In reality, earth is not dissolved to water, but with this word we mean that the energy of the earth element in our body ceases, and as a result of this cease the energy of the water element looks like getting stronger, more powerful. This is the reason its said that the earth dissolves to water, but in reality this is not happening. When this happens we have a mirage-like appearance. In the next stage of the process of dying the water dissolves to the fire energy, and we have an appearance of smoke-like appearance, almost like smoke filling up all space. Then when we go through the stage of the fire element dissolving into the wind element, we have an appearance of fire flies flying up, after this when we enter the next stage of the wind element dissolving into the consciousness element, at this time we have the appearance of flame-like appearance. The next stage is when consciousness dissolves into increase appearance, at this time we have the appearance of moonlight covering up all the space, especially a very clear night in fall time appearance, a unique appearance. And then when the increase appearance dissolves into final three appearance, common, increase, and then near-attainment appearance, when the appearance dissolve into increase, we have the appearance of day time, almost at dawn sunrays fills all the space, reddish appearance. When the increase dissolves into near attainment level, then we have a very unique appearance like a late evening when its about to get night, at that time when the sun sets theres a very strong darkness arriving, this is the same kind of appearance at this stage. Finally when the near attainment dissolves into the clear light, we have a very unique appearance of very clear early morning of the fall season, a very clear day, we see very clearly space outside. This is just around the sunrise, not the sunrise itself, after the night is over, this is a very specific time in which can see very clearly sky, a very clear fall day season day, this kind of appearance arises in us. At this time the real death happens. To do the practice of taking the path of dharmakaya, first we go to the dissolution of the ball of light into ourselves, and then finally to the syllable BAM at our heart level. We have to use a corner part of our mind to think that now I would like to do the practice of taking the death into the path of dharmakaya. We need such a thought generated in the corner of our mind, because the main mind is focusing on the dissolution into BAM. After that to do the practice we visualize that this syllable BAM at our heart in with we dissolved the ball of light gradually grows bigger and bigger. First it covers all of our body, then grows further and covers the whole room or the house where we do the practice. And then further grows gradually and covers up the whole street where we live, and this way we have enlarge this BAM in our visualization. We further enlarge it to cover the whole city we live, then district, then state, then covers the whole nation, then covers the whole world, still we can
enlarge it to cover the whole universe, and still enlarge to cover limitless space beyond universe. After enlarged into such infinite size we have to visualize that the limitless space, whatever is covered, instantly vanished to emptiness with the environment and those dwelling in it, BAM dissolves into emptiness, nature of bliss and voidness. We could meditate on that voidness for a while. Having this meditation done, we have to then reduce the size of BAM once again, reduce it gradually, and finally we got to the level of our house, and further reduce the size to a very, very tiny syllable BAM at our heart level. This tiny BAM syllable, very subtle syllable BAM, further begins to vanish. First, we vanish the body of the syllable BAM into the upper part of BAM. BAM is made of four lines, the lower three lines dissolves to the upper BAM part. At that time we visualize that the earth energy is dissolved to water energy, and we have mirage like appearance, and we could also think that a mirage like appearance is about to appear. When we do the dissolution we have to think that this is a mirage like appearance arising, after the smoke-like appearance comes, this is done in one corner of the mind, as the main part of the mind we are using to focus on the dissolution itself. After the dissolution of earth energy to water energy we have to visualize the upper part of BAM dissolve to the moon like sign that is part of BAM. At that time we visualize that the water energy dissolve to fire energy, and we get a smoke-like appearance, and we need to think we go through this appearance. And this the fire flies appearance comes, and we need to dissolve the moon-like sign into the bow shape, at this time the fire energy dissolves to the wind energy, and we have the fire flies like appearance. After this the flame-like appearance comes. About the fire flies appearance: in Tibet we have a lot of these flies, its like a fly that has a natural lamp at the real part of the body. When it flies in space we could say a little lamp flying in space, you could imagine that when I tell about fire flies like appearance small tiny lamps are flying in space. When we go to the dissolution of the bow shape into the nada, nada is in the shape of flame, this flame has three parts, three curves, first, second, third curve. Here the wind energy dissolves to the consciousness energy. At that time, we have to visualize having flame-like appearance coming up. At the same time, from a corner of our mind, we have to think that this is a flame-like appearance. Then the moonlight appearance comes. When we dissolve the first curve of the nada, its climbing upwards; the first curve is at the bottom, second in the middle, third at the tope. The first nada curve dissolves to the second curve, consciousness dissolving into appearance. At that time we visualize appearance of moonlight, a very clear night at the fall season. When we dissolve the second curve of the nada to the third curve, we visualize the appearance is dissolving into increase, at this time we visualize rays of very fresh sun rays covering all of space, red-like appearance, sunrise time. When the second curve dissolves to the third curve, the increase appearance is being dissolved into near attainment appearance. Here we visualize an appearance of darkness, late evening, just before night, after sunset. Theres a short time after sunset when theres strong darkness. We have to think this appears to us. Finally when the third part of the nada dissolves to nothingness, vanish to emptiness, at this time the near attainment appearance dissolves to clear light, the real death process, at this time we visualize a very clear appearance, very early morning season, clear view. During the visualization of various appearances and dissolutions we need to think of the various appearances with one part of our mind, and that the next appearance will happen.
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After having gone through this process, now all the appearances are gone, nothing appears to us, just an empty sphere. This empty sphere appears to us, this nothingness is known as the emptiness that appears to us. We have to visualize, imagine, and think very strongly that all the phenomena like this nada, are empty of ultimate reality, it does not exist in an ultimate way. In ultimate reality it does not exist in a natural way, empty of nature, we have to have such a strong understanding at this level. If we maintain this strong understanding of emptiness at this time, this is the understanding of emptiness as an object of the mind. After this the mind itself that has this empty appearance, has this understanding of emptiness, this same mind we have to take this, think that this mind is not an ordinary human mind. This is the innate bliss and emptiness, innate blissful wisdom of an enlightened being. We maintain this state, this is experiencing bliss, the bliss that experiences the emptiness object. This is the third quality, first is appearance of emptiness, second emptiness appearing, third experiencing subject that is in the nature of innate bliss. This is indispensable to have a proper path of taking death to the path. Not having these generated, even if we claim practice, this is not the practice of taking death into the dharmakaya. After this, we need to visualize that the object emptiness and subject great bliss, these two object and subject get blended, become inseparable. This inseparable object and subject, bliss and emptiness, is the real dharmakaya of all the enlightened beings. I am this dharmakaya of an enlightened being. We have to generate divine pride on the non-duality of emptiness and bliss, dharmakaya, the real dharma body of an enlightened being. We have to generate a strong sense of divine pride on that mind, that non-dual emptiness and blissful mind state. After going through this meditation, what we need to do is as we meditate on the non-dual emptiness and innate bliss. A part of our mind has to think that if we remain in this meditative equipoise for a long time, we cant help sentient beings. To make sure we could help them we must benefit sentient beings in great scale, we need to arise into a physical body of an enlightened being, sambhogakaya. We need such an intention generated in a par of our mind. As a part of this intention, we visualize that from this state of emptiness suddenly a syllable BAM appears from this sphere of emptiness. This syllable BAM we visualize thus: image that this is the sambhogakaya of all the enlightened beings, the sambhogakaya aspect. This divine pride is not the one that is yourself, because non-dual emptiness and innate bliss. Thats just your mind, this is me, the dharmakaya of all enlightened beings, thats real pride. We are not going to take pride into something unrelated to us, its part of us, a very ideal divine pride. In the case of sambhogakaya, we make divine pride. This is the sambhogakaya of all enlightened beings, this is me, nothing wrong, no wrong, grasping pride, no misunderstanding. Its related to us as an essence of our mind. After that even, if we have the diving pride of being sambhogakaya of enlightened beings, even if we rise to this point, we cant do vast help to sentient beings. We need to arise into the nirmanakaya form so we could be of much benefit to all sentient beings; this has to be generated into one corner of our mind. After this we visualize that from the same empty sphere two EH syllables appear. These two EH syllables transforms their shape, quickly, into two triangle shapes. Here when we talk about the two triangle shapes, its the source of reality, dharma, the triangles are like pyramids, upside down,
crossing each other, having six corners, four at the sides, and one front one back. In that upside down pyramid shape, red color, in that pyramid we visualize a syllable AH popping up from emptiness, quickly transforming to a variegated lotus, and a moon disk on top of it. And on top of the moon disk we visualize the BAM as sambhogakaya coming down and settling down on this moon disk. Around BAM we visualize the Vajrayogini mantra anti-clockwise, OM OM OM SARVA. From this mantra garland and the root syllable huge rays of light emanates. These rays of light fills our whole body in form of ordinary being, and having these rays of light filling up ourselves, completely, from top to bottom, left to right, the whole body. As a result of this it purifies all obscurations related to body, speech and mind of us. As a result, our body transforms to a huge ball of light. These rays of light that transform our body now gradually change the shape of our body, and becomes the Vajrayogini body. The posture is standing on lotus and sun disk, like leg outstretched, left back, on top of deities, whole body red as the end of eon, one face, three eyes looking towards land of dakinis. The left hand is drinking blood from skull cup, she has a katvanga marked with vajra, bell, damaru, long black hair falling to her waist, in her youth. She is experiencing great bliss, she has five skulls at head, garland of heads as necklace. She has no cloths, naked, adorned with five mudras: ornament of head (all made of bones), ear, neck, at her heart tied to her body in a form a chakra at navel level, arms, legs (various bone ornaments, style how ancient Indian women adorned their hands and legs). She is standing in the center of a blazing wisdom fire. The symbolic explanation of deity Vajrayogini: as the deity stands on the variegated lotus, lotus stands for purity, pure renunciation. Because even if the lotus flower grows in very muddy water it does not have any impurities, no stains. In the same way, deity Vajrayogini stands to have a very pure motivation of being free from samsaric existence, from various samsaric sufferings. The sun disk, which she stands on, as the ripening of various types of grains depends on sun, rays, sun has a huge role to play in ripening grains. The same way deity Vajrayogini has a big important role to play to get the mind of the practitioner to ripen. The extension of stretching her right leg pushing the breast of red Kalarati: breast is the main part of the body where the desire and attachment arises. Left leg is bent pushing the forehead of Bhaivadra, the forehead of the black Bhaivadhra, presses down the head towards the head towards the heart level, also pressing the heart level. The forehead is considered the part of the body from which ignorance arises strongly. The heart she also presses, heart is the part from which hatred and anger arises. Due to these reasons she presses on these vital parts of the body, this means that she completely ceases, wipes out all the negativities, three main poisons, from practitioners. The deity has a red body; her whole body is red, no other color. This stands for the deity being full of bliss and non-dual bliss and emptiness. In the flames of non-dual bliss and emptiness she destroys all defilements and impurities, and obscurations, she destroys all this in the burning flame of nondual emptiness and bliss. She also has a very beautiful appearance -- the burning flame as in the end of the eon -- this symbolizes this red color.
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One face symbolizes that even if phenomena are various, but reality of phenomena is one, emptiness. In emptiness, theres only one taste, theres no second way or second option in reality. One face stands for that. Two hands symbolizes the union of two realities, union of relative reality and ultimate reality, having three eyes stands for perceiving all three times directly, very clearly, as we perceive any things we put the palm of our hand. Looking towards the land of Kechara, towards her pure land, stands for leading practitioners who rely on her to the land of Kechara, the pure land of Vajrayogini, in a very short time, very swiftly, very quickly. The curved knife in the right hand, stretched out, stands for chopping off, cut off; cease all the afflictions of mother sentient beings, in an instant. In the left hand, she holds a skull cup filled with blood. This skull cup does not just contain blood, it also contains intestines. Intestines stand for illusory body, and blood stands for clear light. Vajrayogini is a great master of the union of illusory body and clear light. The katvanga is a Sanskrit word. The katvanga has six parts: bottom is a vase, on top of that a crossed vajra, on top of that fresh human skulls, rotten human head, a skull, on top five spoke vajra. These six things refer to the six implements, six limbs, especially. The Vajrayogini katvanga has a damaru and bell, these are very special implements, and they are only in the Vajrayogini katvanga, not in other deity katvangas. This is a very special Vajrayogini specialty. She is having black hair, each strand separated, falling to the waist. The black hair, strands separately, symbolizes that Vajrayogini is having no self-grasping at all, completely free from this, not the slightest influence of self-grasping at all. She is in the prime of youth, breasts in full desire, skull crown at the head, fifty skulls around the head, naked, adorned with five mudras, and finally in the wisdom fire.
Donning the Armor

At various parts of my, body appear moon mandalas. When we talk about various parts of the body: navel, heart, mouth, throat, forehead, crown and finally various joints. We need to visualize moon mandalas at these various parts of the body. This is not how we do it commonly like a disk; here we need to visualize the mandala like a mirror put upright. At navel level we have a moon disk as an upright mirror, heart level another moon mandala upright, at throat another mandala, at forehead another moon mandala, at crown another crown mandala upright, and then finally at the eight joints at our body, elbow, wrist, and so forth, upright moon mandalas. Now we need to visualize various mantras of various dakinis. At navel level the mantra OM BAM on this moon mandala, we could visualize the mantra as reflection in the mirror, from this red OM BAM we visualize rays of light coming, mantras radiating red light to our body, navel part, spreading around our navel towards the heart part. It stops just below the heart moon mandala. This is a shield of red light, between the flesh and skin of our body, and the mandala is here between. After this we visualize the syllable HAM YOM in the nature of the dakinis Yamani in the heart level moon mandala, syllables in blue, and emanates blue light underneath our skin, goes to the moon mandala we have visualized at the throat level. At the moon mandala at the throat, we visualize white HRIM MOM in nature of dakinis Mohani. This white syllables emanate rays of white light, and these rays create a light shield underneath the skin, goes up to the forehead mandala.
At the forehead level we visualized yellow HRIM HRIM inside the moon mandala. These yellow syllables also radiate yellow rays of light. It creates a shield of yellow light under our forehead, just under the part where we have our hairs growing on our forehead. Finally, at the crown mandala we visualize HUM HUM, green, nature of dakinis Santasani, and these green syllable emanate green light, creates a shield at crown level, almost like a cap. At the various joints, such as elbows, wrist, knees, angles, we visualize moon mandala with black-smoke colored PHET PHET, in the nature of dakinis Chandika, these smoke-colored syllables radiate rays of light, smoke-colored, that goes to all the rest of the body and creates a shield underneath the skin. With this, we have the whole body put into a shield made of rays of light. This is like an armor against various obstructions and energies coming from the outside, protects us from these obstructive forces and energies coming to disturb us, and also is a protection not to let the blessings we have inside our body to dissipate from our body, get wasted. This light armor has two purposes: protect from outside obstacles and energies, and keep inner blessings and property energies not getting out.
Leading Sentient Beings to Enlightenment

After that the seventh yoga is to lead sentient beings to enlightenment. This should be visualized: from the mantra garland and the BAM syllable visualized from us Vajrayogini huge rays of light radiate out. They go out through the pores of our body, and reach all sentient beings in the universe, limitless universes, world systems. As a result reaching all sentient beings, touching them, benefiting them, it purifies their obscurations and negativities related to body, speech, and mind, completely purifies these negativities, and as a result, we transform all sentient beings to the deity Vajrayogini. Today we are not having any QA sessions; we will do this tomorrow.
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Day Four September 13 2000

For the benefit of sentient beings, limitless as the sky, I would like to attain great Buddhahood, for that purpose today I listen to the teachings of the Vajrayogini practice, with such a good motivation I listen to the teachings.
Messengers
We do the flaming mudra: start from the left knee, circle it clock-wise, then anti-clockwise, then anticlockwise, three times each at the head, and then say PHEEEM and then bring the mudra down to the right knee. If possible you should sit in a special posture, you have to get up from the cross-legged lotus posture, sit in a posture almost sitting on your knees, the left thumb is pressing the right feet toes, and have a very specific posture looking at the left knee, a slightly standing posture, and then begin the hand posture from this. As you bring the mudra towards the sky, you have to look at the same time from your knee to the sky. At your forehead, you first circle the mudra clock-wise three times, or left-words, move your posture towards the left side of you. Then move the posture to the right side, three times, make a circle of the posture, and again do it to the left side, and then finally say the mantra PHEEEM, and bring down the hand posture towards the right knee. While you do this mudra, in your mind you have to try to have a thought of having non-dual wisdom of bliss and emptiness arising, and maintain this. With this type of thought when you recite the mantra PHEEEM you have to try to recite it loudly, almost as there were birds on the balcony and you make the voice loud enough to chase them away. But, in a quiet place such as this you could do this, but you are not allowed to do this in for example in a monastic environment, you could disturb others. The meaning of this mantra is that as I invite the dakas and dakinis of the whole universe with the power of the mantra and the mudra, and the concentration (mental). If you dont come even if I invite you with all these implements, then your head will burst into thousand pieces! This is considered one of the most powerful ways to invite the dakas and dakinis, and deities. When you recite the ritual verses that means from the BAM syllable of us visualize the deity emanating huge amounts of rays of light, all these lights go to different directions, especially to Akanista pure realm, the highest physical place or land that exists, created of subtle forms, the highest form realm. There are two different forms of Akanista. If we go in deep detail this would take a long time, but here we think of the highest samsaric place, the highest place that exists in the universe. From the pure land of Vajrayogini, the highest place in the universe, we invite the deity Vajrayogini surrounded by heroes and various yoginis. From the ten directions we summon all the Vajrayoginis that has been produced as a transformation of all transmigrating sentient beings into Vajrayogini. We summon all these dakas and dakinis to us, and they get closer and closer to us, and the various Vajrayoginis dissolve to each other, and also all dakas and dakinis dissolve, and when they are close, arm span from us, all dissolve to the main Vajrayogini that we summoned from the pure land of Akanista (Tib. Ogmin).
This Vajrayogini comes towards us, and finally is just above on the top of the crown, and at this time we have to recite the mantra DZA. DZA means to invite or summon the wisdom being, whatever deity, towards us. Here we recite DZA, when we do this we visualize that the main deity Vajrayogini that came from Akanista is just above our crown. Next when we recite HUM we visualize that this Vajrayogini enters our body from the crown. When we say BAM Vajrayogini dissolves into us, it becomes the same, inseparable from us, and finally we say HO, and we visualize the deity is stabilized, with great amount of happiness and bliss the dissolution is stabilized inside us. When we do this practice we are doing three messenger practice. When we talk about messengers, we have three levels: external, internal, and secret. External messengers are Vajrayoginis produced by transmigrating beings are lowest level external messengers. The dakas and dakinis we invite are the intermediate level of external messengers, Vajrayogini the deity that comes from Akanista the pure land is the highest level of external messenger. As an invitation, having them brought towards us we have three internal messengers blessed. The eight openings are the lowest level of internal messengers, twenty-four places of body and the channels and the channel openings at these places are the intermediate inner messengers, the eight main channels, main channels at the heart chakra is considered the highest level of inner messengers. As the dissolution of these three external messengers we activate various energies reside in these three various levels of inner messengers. As a result of activation of these inner energies at various channels of our body, we make ourselves more ripen to have various secret messengers achieved. The meditation on emptiness and meditation on non-dual emptiness and bliss that we do is in a form of belief, attempt, and acting doing it. In reality, we dont have this great wisdom arising, but we pretend, believe that this strong sense of belief that this wisdom is arising, cultivated in us. This kind of meditation is known to be the lowest level of secret messengers. The indirect comprehension of emptiness, recognition, concept, this is the intermediate level of secret messenger. The direct perception of emptiness is the highest level of secret messenger. While we do these meditations and practices of getting all wisdom beings from the universe and dissolving to us, we try to activate the energies residing in various channels and parts of our body, through this activation we try to have our mind stream ripen to have these three levels of secret messengers achieved by us. When we recite the mantra OM SHUDDHA DHARMA the tantra text says that we need to do the mudra that consists of five parts of hand postures. When we talk about the five postures, first we take the hand posture at the heart level, left wrist level, heart level, right wrist level, and finally the hugging posture. It looks complicated, and its not that important to do it in the case of the Vajrayogini practice. If we do the Heruka Chakrasamvara practice we need to do this, its considered important. In the case of the female deity Chakrasamvara tantra we do the hand posture called the essential hand posture, you could do this by first hand crossed at heart level, then right wrist level, then left wrist level, then finally the embracing posture. The mantra, OM SHUDDHA it says that Im generating divine pride, the non-dual wisdom of emptiness and bliss that is the purified form of all phenomenon, the yoga of all phenomenon, the pure yoga of phenomenon, that is me. We need to create such divine pride.
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The Yoga of Mantra Recitation

The next yoga is the mantra recitation yoga. The yoga of recitation has the meaning to bringing us closer. What does it bring us closer to? It brings us closer to the deity, makes us have stronger causes and conditions to get speech aspect of deity, the speech vajra, get the realization of the vajra recitation of the completion state. As a result from doing the recitation we can activate the heart of the deity, and various mental qualities of the deity, this will bring us quickly various achievements. When we talk about recitation, the term has a meaning, the Sanskrit has a meaning, it brings us closer, due to this reason we have this process of doing the recitation, to bring us closer to the deity, we will get all the blessings, we will activate the deity to have various actions acquired to oneself. So this is why we do the recitation. To do the recitation, we need a mala (rosary). If we get a mala made of a skull then that would be best, if we dont get a skull mala, the second preferred one is a mala made of bodhi seed, specific grain. When we have the mala, we need to bless the mala. To do the blessing there are various elaborate and detailed ways to do this, taught in various teachings related to doing retreats of Vajrayogini. You could do the blessings this way, or you could do this a brief way by reciting the mantra three OM mantra seven times, this is the Vajrayogini mantra, you could recite seven times this mantra and then blow on the mala. Then you have to have a small bag or small wallet where to put the mala. Its not good to have your blessed mala shown to all persons that dont have a faith in the Vajrayogini practice, or mantra practice. Besides this, its good to have the mala kept very clean, in a respected place, better take the mala to a rest room, or dirty places, this is not recommended to take blessed malas to these places. The three-OM mantra syllable is a very special mantra, its unique, and its a combination of root mantra and essence mantra and near essence mantra, so there are three mantras blended into one. So this is why this mantra has three OM and three HUM. The mantra has three parts, three HUM and three PHAT. OM OM OM SARVA BUDDHA DAKINI this is the mantra of Buddha Dakini. VAJRA VANANIYE another mantra of the Vajrayogini deity (trans. dont remember the name) VARJA BENOZHANAIE this is Vajra BENODZHANA, one of the five Buddha families. So this mantra consists of three different deities, three enlightened beings. In itself, its a very unique mantra. Finally, if we recite this mantra, we dont need to recite mantras of other female deities such as Tara, Sarasvati, and so forth. There are other dakinis and female deities, so doing the mantra recitation of Vajrayogini then you dont need to do separate mantra recitation of other dakinis, as the essence of all the other dakinis are included in this mantra. You activate the energies of various other dakinis when you recite this mantra.
When we do the mantra recitation we need to have visualization done this way: inside the dharma source in her heart is a moon mandala, on top of that a BAM circled by the mantra counterclockwise (three OM mantra). From this BAM and the mantra garland innumerable rays of red light emanate to ten directions, and covers limitless space. All sentient beings that are covered by these rays of light are affected, as a result all sentient beings in space covered by these rays will get all obscurations and negativities removed concerning body, speech and mind, and as a result of the negativities and obscurations removed they attain the Vajrayogini attainment. With us they are also following us as the monks following the chant master, so the Vajrayoginis we produced by turning all sentient beings follow us, and we imaging that we all make a huge sound of mantra recitation. If we visualize the body mandala deities at her heart level, then we visualize that all deities of the body mandala recites the mantra at the same time. Usually we dont do the body mandala visualization as its not necessary during the sadhana. After done this we once again radiate huge amounts of red light from BAM and the mantra syllable. These rays of light also go to limitless space, and the enlightened beings, buddhas and bodhisattvas, especially the enlightened beings, wherever they dwell in the space where the radiation covers, all of them are touched by these red lights. They feel huge amounts of wisdom of non-dual bliss and emptiness, this arises in them when the rays touch them. They feel very good to have the offerings offered to them via this light. After this they send the blessings towards us, as various forms of implements deities carry in their hands, various symbols, various mantra syllables, and various forms of mantra syllables, all symbols that the deities carry in their hands, in these forms the blessings of enlightened beings come to us. Finally, all these blessings come to us as rays of light, and dissolve to the BAM syllable and the mantra garland at the heart level. With this we have imagine, or feel that we received infinite blessings of all the enlightened beings. We have various ways to do the visualization when we do the mantra recitation. If we like to do this type of visualization, we can also emanate innumerable rays of light from the seed syllable and the mantra garland. Innumerable red rays of light comes from these, and each and every ray of light carries on its tip a tiny Vajrayogini. All these Vajrayoginis spread to infinite, limitless space, and each and every Vajrayogini come to the top of each sentient being, and produce huge amounts of nectar and rays of light from their body. The nectar and light enters each and every sentient beings body. As a result of this dissolution of nectar and light the body, speech and mind is completely purified, and as a result all the sentient beings are put into the state of achieving Vajrayogini. When the Vajrayoginis come to each and every sentient being, Vajrayogini is teaching them how to do the practice of the path, lamrim and tantra, initiation, generation and completion stage teachings, and finally the teachings how to attain the union of no more learning. Each time Vajrayogini gives them a teaching, the sentient beings do the practice and meditation of the teaching, and achieve the realizations quickly, and quickly achieve the union of no more learning, and change into Vajrayogini. We could visualize this way as well.
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Another visualization is that we could emanate huge amounts of light from mantra garland and BAM. On the tip of these lights we visualize various female celestial beings, carry on offering activities, these offering deities in the form of female celestial beings. They carry in their hands various offerings, external offering, inner offerings, secret offerings, and these are offered to innumerable enlightened beings. As a result, the enlightened beings get a huge and very fresh and strong non-dual wisdom of bliss and emptiness. This arises in them, and they are very happy in us concerning this activity. In return, they send their blessings to us in forms of various deity bodies, physical appearances, various symbols they carry in their hands, and in the form of various mantra syllables, these syllables and symbols and deity appearances are in the form of rays of light not a solid form. All these come back to us and dissolve to us, and into the seed syllable and mantra syllable, and we feel we received limitless blessings from enlightened beings. We could also visualize we are made to achieve various actions of Vajrayogini, such as leading us to Kechara in a very short time, in a very quick way. When we visualize the root syllable and the mantra garland circling the root syllable at the heart level, we must not visualize the mantras as mantras written on paper. We must also not visualize the mantra as a form of carved letters. We have to visualize each and every word of the mantra in the nature of rays of light, its very bright and sparking, almost like a lamp or light bulb, we turn it on -it sparkles with light. We have to maintain the shape of mantra, its still there, but its bright, and sparkles with light. Its very important to maintain the focus of the mind, mind focused on the mantra recitation and visualizations, and avoid distractions. Also, it is important to do the recitation without doing any parts of the mantra skipped, or syllables added, this is important. When we do the retreat, there are certain rules how to do the mantra recitation. If we yawn, or sneeze, or spit, or clean the nose, or get drowsy (have a short sudden nap), we cough, or expel gases, in these cases if we do the retreat when doing certain mantras as a commitment we need to redo certain amount of mantras. In the daily practice, we dont need to add more mantras in this case. If we yawn, we have to avoid counting three mantras we recite after this. If we sleep or speech to other people, or cough, we need to reduce five mantras from counting. In the case of having gas coming out, we need to reduce seven mantras to be counted. In the case if we spit between mantra recitations, or clean the nose, or sneeze, then we need to reduce ten mantras from being counted. Finally, if we doze off when we recite the mantra, we need to avoid counting fifteen mantras. Even if we dont need to apply this in a daily sadhana practice its good to do this so we do more mantras in the sadhana practice.
Mental Mantra Recitation

These are ways how we do oral recitation. Now the mental recitation is explained. Mental recitation is done by visualizing the syllable BAM in combination with the central channel in our body. We visualize BAM at the heart level. As we are visualizing BAM at the double triangle reality source, we visualize at the center of this reality source the channels go to our nose opening, and go down to the secret organ. After this visualization we inhale the wind from our nose, inhale it very slowly, in a smooth way.
If we inhale from the mouth, this not a proper meditation and it will cause a lot of problems. And the wind covers the BAM and the mantra circle as a hat. Then from the lower opening, at the tip of secret organ, we inhale the wind from that part, and visualize it comes to the heart level and is set at the heart level as a vessel, as a pot, under the mantra garland and the syllable. Then we visualize the two winds touching each other from edge to edge, almost creating a pot with the top put on it. This visualization is known as the vase-like wind mediation. After having these two winds brought there, touching edge to edge, holding the mantra string and moon disk and syllable, now we need to meditate, focus our mind, being inside the syllable BAM, meditate this way. With the mind getting inside BAM, from inside the syllable BAM is looking at the mantras, reading the mantras in anti-clockwise way. At this time we dont do any verbal recitation, we just recite in our mind. This is the mental recitation. This has to be done as long as we could hold the winds there in our visualization and meditation. If we are not able to hold the wind any longer, we need to have the winds released back to their natural place wherefrom we brought them. The lower wind is released to the tip of the secret organ, and upper wind to the nose. This should also be done smoothly and slowly, not quickly. This is the mental recitation of the mantra done in a meditation of vase-like wind, visualized into vase form. Its very important to know, if this is not done properly, this is very dangerous, could cause physical problems, as the winds are brought, pulled inside, and pushed back, and in this process if we dont do it properly it would cause problems to our wind element in our body, bring physical imbalance and health problems. So it should be done properly. In the beginning its hard to hold the wind at the heart level for a long time, its not good to hold it there for a long time, recite the mantra for seven times or so. If we manage to recite the mantra once its a good achievement, if do more and more, three times, seven times, then as we get more familiar with the practice then we could increase the mantra recitation. If we try to do a long recitation from the beginning, then this is not advisable as this could cause problems, physical problems. In the text it says when we do the mental recitation, you focus your mind on also the bliss wheel on the four corners of the reality source, but you dont need to focus on this when you do the mental recitation, just on the mantra and syllable. Usually the bliss wheel meditation is done in the completion stage practice that comes as a supplementary practice when we do generation stage practice. When we do the supplementary completion stage practice when doing generation stage practice we need to focus the mind on the bliss wheels. We visualize the reality source and bliss wheels on the four corners, pink color, then at the bottom and top we draw the wind the same way as explained earlier, slowly, smoothly. Finally, we create a same type of vase shape encircling the mantra syllable and garland in the center of the deity. The difference is that when we do this practice of completion state, we visualize a flame on the seed syllable BAM. Having the winds drawn and created the pot encircling the mantras and syllables, we focus the minds not to read the mantras. We focus on the flame on the BAM and the four bliss wheels moving very fast at the four corners at the reality source, we have to keep our mind focused on these parts as long as possible, as far as we maintain the wind bowl maintained. As soon as we feel we cant hold the wind at that level, then we need to release the wind again to the point where we draw it from, also done slowly and smoothly.
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This is how we do the supplementary completion stage practice while doing generation stage practice. The other way of doing the visualization is that now we dont visualize any reality shape, we just visualize a central channel in the center of our body, a white central channel that beings from the eye brow level, enter, goes to crown level, bends down, and goes to heart level, and finally to the opening of the secret organ. In this central channel we visualize a white bliss wheel at upper opening, and red bliss wheel at lower opening. We draw up the red bliss, the bliss wheel is spinning very fast, we move it up slowly from the lower opening to heart level, and finally have it brought to the heart level, and its still spinning very fast, anti-clockwise. We have to feel bliss when we draw up the red bliss wheel from the lower opening to the heart level, and also a feeling of emptiness. Then we bring down the white bliss wheel from upper opening, at top between eye brows, spins fast anti-clock wise, is drawn down slowly and smoothly, through crown to heart level, and at heart level we feel bliss and happiness, imagine experiencing great happiness and bliss. Finally these two wheels touch each other, move even faster than earlier, anti-clockwise direction, and this fast movement the color changes to a pink color, and we try to meditate on the emptiness and non-dual emptiness and bliss at this time. In this text the supplementary practice of completion stage in the practice of generation stage that I explained, the flame and focusing on the flame and the four bliss wheels on the reality source, that is not clear in this text. In reality, it has to come first, before doing mental recitation. After this we do the mental recitation, and after this we do the second supplementary practice of completion stage in the practice of generation stage. Finally these bliss wheels at the heart level of central dissolve into BAM, at the heart level, vanish into BAM. The practice of the visualization and meditation to the supplementary completion stage during the generation stage is not a part of the sadhana itself. While you do the sadhana meditation its not necessary to do these visualizations. But if you do these, that will create more merit and more energies, to have various achievements of completion stage, various blessings of the deity to have the completion stage achievements achieved easier and quicker. So even if you dont do these practices the sadhana is not considered incomplete.
Inconceivable Yoga
Now we discuss the tenth, inconceivable yoga. Light rays emanate from BAM, and mantra garland, and goes to the three realms, formless melts into blue light and goes to upper body, form realm into red light and dissolves into my middle body, desire realm into white light, into lower body, I dissolve. [See sadhana for full visualization] After from the state of voidness we arise into the deity Vajrayogini, as the deity between the sessions. This Vajrayogini does not need to have all the implements carried in her hands, skull cup, cleaver, and so forth, not needed to be visualized, just the deity with nothing carrying in her hands. Then we visualize the protection shield, navel moon mandala, and so forth on the eight parts of my body. On each and every moon mandala theres a specific syllable pair, but in reality they are in the nature of eight different dakinis of protection. [See sadhana for listing]
Protection Shield
When we do the recitation of the mantra OM SAMHANI you do three finger snappings to various direction, we do the recitation twice. The first time when you recite the mantra, you do the finger snapping to east and top direction, when you do the snapping the mantra is fixed to those directions, and huge amounts of lights go out, and create a shield. When you recite the second mantra, the snapping is done to north direction, and visualize the mantra sticks there and emanates huge amounts of light creating a shield. And then you recite OM GRI you snap the finger at the west direction (back) and lower direction, and visualize the mantra is fixed to those directions, and they emanate huge amounts of light, and create a light shield. Finally, when you do the fourth mantra you snap the finger to the south direction, and visualize the mantra is fixed there and emanates light and a light shield. During the second recitation you do the finger snapping in the southeast direction, and mantra is fixed there and the shield of light is produced. When you recite the second mantra, snap at the southwest direction and the mantra is fixed there and makes a light shield. Next you recite the third mantra and snap finger at northwest direction, and mantra is fixed there and creates a light shield. Finally when you recite the fourth mantras you do the mantra at northeast direction and the mantra is fixed there and creates a mantra shield. After all these recitations a huge shield of mantras and a huge shield of light protect you. The next verse is dedication verse [See Sadhana for text]. This is very clear.
Torma Offerings
Now we are at the torma offering part. First we need to bless the tormas, we bless the tormas with OM AH HUM, show the left hand palm mudra and we drive away all the possible obstructive forces attracted and dwelling in the torma, the palm of left hand drives them away. With AH we show the palm of right hand, and we visualize that the torma offering is purified, all faults and impurities in the offering is purified when we do this mudra with the right palm. And then when we recite HUM we show both palms, we visualize that the torma that has gone through the process of obstructions gone away and impurities removed is now transformed to a real offering, capable to satisfy and generate a huge amount of non-dual wisdom of emptiness and bliss, into whomever we offer the torma. After that we recite the mantra HRAH HOH HRIH with the garuda mudra, when we do the mudra we visualize that the torma is further transformed into an ocean of nectar. Finally its made infallible, infinite, non-exhaustible, what quantity we take from the offering it will never exhaust, transformed to a huge offering in the nature of nectar and is having the capability to create very strong sense of bliss in the deity we offer it to. Even if we offer it repeatedly it will never get finished. So this gets transformed into an offering with all these offerings.
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For the recitation of the mantra PHEEEM, its the same burning, flame-like mudra; you invite the guests of the offering. Here it says that Vajrayogini and dakas, dakinis and protectors are invited [See Sadhana for full text]. Visualize the guests of offering, the torma offering and other offerings we give to. You could visualize Vajrayogini in the reality source pyramid. On the pyramid you visualize the root gurus and lineage gurus, and at the front corner of pyramid towards us we visualize dakas and dakinis, and at the back corner we visualize the supramundane protectors and various mundane protectors circling the reality source. To all these guests of offering, we carry on the offerings. When we do the offering of torma or various other offerings (seven or eight offerings) we need to emanate the offering deity, from our heart, from BAM, the celestial female being that carry on the offering process. They take the offerings from where we have them displayed, and offer it to various deities. At the first recitation of the Three OM mantra and the other mantra, we the offering deities carry the offerings, torma offerings, and offer it to the gurus and deity Vajrayogini. As a result, the gurus and deity Vajrayogini feel great sense of bliss generated in them, and are very happy receiving these offerings. After this we withdraw the offering celestial female back to us, and then we emanate a new offering goddess that carry offering torma the second time with the two mantras, offered to dakas and dakinis, and supramundane protectors at front and back corner of the reality source. As a result, they have a lot of bliss arising in them. After this we withdraw the celestial beings back into BAM and us. Then we emanate another female celestial being, this time this being carries the torma and offers it to the worldly protectors when we recite the 3-OM and the second mantra. After this we have offered the torma to all those invited. Then we have to image that they have a huge sense of bliss generated as part of the offering accepted. Then we dissolve the offering deities to the BAM syllable, and emanate new celestial beings to do offering. At this time these celestial beings carry on the various offerings, seven set of offering, ARGHAM, PADYAM and offer this to all guests, and they feel a huge amount of bliss arising in themselves. Then we dissolve these celestial beings back to BAM. Then we emanate another celestial beings that carry the inner offering, and offer this to the guests invited, and as result the guests generate a huge sense of bliss and happiness, and then we dissolve the celestial offering goddesses back to BAM. After this we need to produce another offering deity, at this time we dont produce or emanate a celestial female being, rather a deity that sings the praises of the deities, and she sings the songs of praises of appreciation of the deity Vajrayogini [See Sadhana for text]. After the song of appreciation you visualize the deities feel great bliss as a result of the song of praise. You dissolve the dakini emanated into BAM and mantra garland. And then we do the dedications, the same as discussed before [See Sadhana for text]. In the Tibetan text we also have a verse of auspiciousness [See long sadhana of Pabongkha Rinpoche for the full text].
Final Words
Its really appreciable that human beings born in a developed society of USA has a keen interest in practicing dharma, and you carry on the dharma practice in various ways. Its very meaningful to have it done this way. We have a very magnificent human birth to do dharma, and have facilities to do dharma. If we dont do the dharma practice at this time, its really very hard and difficult to acquire such a good golden opportunity in future. We need to maximize, squeeze the maximum benefit from this human birth. So I appreciate your dharma practice, and at the same time request to continue with such serious dharma practice in future, and do the dharma practice for a long time and achieve great achievements, especially in the practice of Vajrayogini.
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Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 1 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Venerable Lati Rinpoche

Day One September 10 2000

Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 3 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 5 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Benefits of this Practice

Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 7 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Person Qualified for the Practice

Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 9 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 11 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 13 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Yoga of Tasting Nectar

Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 15 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 17 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 19 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Day Two September 11 2000

Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 21 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 23 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 25 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 27 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Day Three September 12 2000

Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 29 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 31 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 33 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Donning the Armor

Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 35 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Leading Sentient Beings to Enlightenment

Day Four September 13 2000

Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 37 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Yoga of Mantra Recitation

Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 39 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Mental Mantra Recitation

Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 41 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 43 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 45 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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