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Lati Rinpoche Vajrayogini Commentary 1________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Venerable Lati Rinpoche

Vajrayogini CommentarySeptember 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 2000Motivation

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'thelp 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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2 September 2000_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Human BirthTo 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 variouslevels 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 RealmsIts 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 afflictionbased 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 wecollect 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.


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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 almostimpossible 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, andas 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 intensemental 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.

BodhichittaEven 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 ourpresent 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.


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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 cultivatesuch 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 PracticeToday 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 lineagehas been kept alive.


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6 September 2000_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Benefits of this PracticeThe 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 greatenlightenment.

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 onall 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.


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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 thesadhana 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 PracticeThe 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, orDhampapa, 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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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 strongrespect 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 simplefeatures. 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 YogaTo 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 ourhands. 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.


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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 syllableBAM 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 non-

virtuous. 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 veryfruitful and effective to have realizations swiftly acquired, have the blessings received, and have a

practice gone smoothly with no obstructions.

Waking YogaThe 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 theheart 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.


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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, handornaments, 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 NectarThe 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 putthe 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 YogaThe 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 shouldnot 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.


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RefugeAfter 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. Thereare 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, alsorealizations 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, ateyebrow 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 theBuddha/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.


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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 viewyou 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 beenslight 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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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. Weneed 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 andunderstand 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 insamsara 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 wewere 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.


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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 themajor 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 puredharma) 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.

BodhichittaAfter 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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22 September 2000_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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 weneed 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 anincomparable 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


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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. Whenwe 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 specialmotivation 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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24 September 2000_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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 thistime, 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 refugeentering us, we receive a huge amount of blessings from the refuge field.

Vajrasattva PracticeAfter 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 thatwe 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.


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26 September 2000_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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-dualto 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 muchblessings 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?


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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 v

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