As you have learned in your, through your previous studies in the Lama System of Meditation, that once you approach every session of study, of Dharma study with the right attitude and right practice. Now the attitude, what we call right attitude, is a very conscious resolution. that by one's efforts to learn the Dharma, then all beings might become benefited, and that the result of one's efforts to acquire right knowledge and understanding of Dharma is to be accomplished for their sake and is intended to bring about the ultimate result, the light, the full enlightenment of all beings and oneself.

[01:21]

That is right attitude. The rights way to practice listening to the Dharma, studying the Dharma, at least on tantric occasions such as the present, is that one should not harbor common conceptualizations of the present situation, rather than seeing it as a simple, merely a study session on the exchange of information between ordinary humans, you should visualize your teacher as being none other than Shakyamuni Buddha himself, who is teaching you personally the path of liberation. Visualizing him in the medium form of Shakyamuni Buddha as he is teaching, think that rays of light shine forth from his body to touch all living beings and yourself, removing all obscurations, ignorance, motive defilements, passions, et cetera.

[02:44]

And the blessing here comes in the awakening of understanding, insight, profound realization. Then as he is speaking, expounding the teachings to you, you should think of the sound of his voice as the proclamation of the the proclamation of the sound of oneness itself. His very sound of his words proclaims this profound doctrine of oneness. And further, you should visualize yourself, not as an ordinary person, but as being an adventuring bodhisattva, a personified being.

[03:52]

the wisdom aspect of the Buddha's enlightened mind and tirelessly seeks out all the dharmas and the doctrines on behalf of living beings. So thinking of yourself and being a Buddha as extraordinary beings, thinking also that the entire situation is in that this house, your own form, all are not substantial, solid bodies, flesh and blood, but that while very clearly apparent, in their manifestation, nonetheless, are also void, at the same time void, interdependent origination, they are not. They love to be thought of as something solid and substantial, but rather like the manifestation,

[05:03]

clear appearance of the rainbow, which no matter how clear it is, is nonetheless substantial, and only owes its appearance to a concatenation of causes and conditions, and so too with the present moment. I'm trying to keep this approximation of ultimate reality in mind, that you should listen. Mindfulness, sincerity, compassion in your heart, a good resolve, too many teachings, attentive and mindful effort to understand and retain this communication of the Dharma that you have received. Can you all hear me? I'm afraid the voice is gone. To return to our course of studies, you will recall that we told you that there are two kinds of preliminary practices or ngondro teachings, that is the ordinary and the extraordinary.

[06:24]

By this we mean By ordinary practices, we mean those, according to me, which are performed in the light of the exoteric instructions of practice, the non-tantric Prajnaparamita path of training in meditation. And by extraordinary mandra or foundation practices, we mean specifically those tantric, esoteric practices which are designed to prepare the meditator for advanced tantric meditations. We are presently concerned with receiving instructions for the latter class of mundral meditations, that is, esoteric extraordinary mundral practices.

[07:37]

There are four such mundral practices. These are known as the four foundation meditations and consist of the refuge, practice of taking the refuge, that is, the Vajrasattva meditation, the mandala offering, and the guru yoga meditation. During our past two classes, we have discussed the first of these four foundation meditations, that of refuge, and have completed our discussion of instructions for that first mandala practice.

[08:40]

Today we will turn to the second mandala meditation, the practice of the Vajrasattva, the practice of the Vajrasattva meditation through which obstacles and obscurations are purified through the practice of Vajrasattva meditation. It should be obvious by now that this concept of bodhicitta, or of a resolve, the presence of a mental resolve to strive for Buddhahood for the sake of all living beings, is the hallmark

[09:55]

or the special feature of Mahayana Buddhism as a whole. If religion is performed with this attitude present, it automatically pertains to the Mahayana's path. If a spiritual act or a religious act is performed, apart from such a resolve, it does not belong to Mahayana style, no matter how virtuous or good it may be. So, the presence or absence of this bodhicitta, Universalist resolve is inverting litmus test for Mahayana practices.

[11:12]

You will recall also that we said that bodhicitta has two aspects in the study's revisions. It consists of both bodhicitta as aspiration and bodhicitta as application. By the first we mean that One formulates within one's mind a conscious resolve, a decision to direct one's efforts towards the attainment of total enlightenment for the sake of all living beings. This is, in so many words, in so many thought constructions one develops this idea within one's mind. and considers it to be a formulation of one's aim in life, or at least one's aim in one's religious efforts.

[12:22]

The second aspect of bodhicitta, as we said, bodhicitta as application, When one undertakes to train oneself in accordance with this aspiration to enlightenment, then what everyone does is maybe considered to be a manifestation or expression of one's bodhicitta in application. That is, one's training in, for example, making gifts to other beings, training oneself in moral conduct, practicing patience, developing diligence in meditation or other practices, applying oneself to meditations,

[13:34]

and so forth, seeking to gain insight into selflessness. All of these paramitas, training in these paramitas or spiritual protections are examples of bodhicitta in application. To give a very mundane example, Suppose you conceive the idea of making a pilgrimage to India. It begins there, with just the idea that I shall go to India. But merely by thinking about arriving in India, you haven't reached your goal. So, between the time making a conscious decision to go to India, pilgrimage, and your actual arrival there, you will have to engage in a number of steps.

[14:49]

For example, you will have to acquire necessary papers, necessary flight arrangements, and you will have to physically to move from one place to another until you finally reach your destination in India. So this Bodhicitta of application consists of merely of formulating this idea of your goal and then there's all that follows in between. your actual arrival at that goal constitutes your bodhicitta in action, in application. All that it takes, in the light of your original intention to get enlightened, all that it takes to get you there, actually, is set in bodhicitta, in application.

[15:52]

All living beings have been my mother. Yes, I... Yes, that's all. Very good. And this is repeated on the following page in another shorter form. It says, for the sake of... It gives you a long and a short form. You don't have to do both, but choose a long and a short reduction. Then let us turn to page 29 for a discussion of Vajrasattva meditation, which will be our topic for today. Let us begin. Shā'a Llāh, jītī mā tawfīq, yukhārūn dhā'u wa s-ṣalātu wa jītī, [...] yukhār

[17:26]

It is a good trick in all the good days. aspect of Vajrasattva. And we'll be doing the wrap-up of this meditation. So there will be some differences. To give you some idea of the deity's appearance, you can refer to this. All right. Now, our topic today is the second of the four foundation meditations, that of the Vajrasattva meditations. Now, Vajrasattva primary function as a Tantra deity is to bring about purity or purification of obscurations and obstacles that might hinder one in either one's practice or in one's attainment of

[18:41]

of spiritual stages. So it is important for beginners to undertake his meditation at the beginning, in order to remove these possible hindrances before they are encountered. His meditation is attributed with qualities which remove karmic which remove karmic results before they ripen. That is, if one meditates, performs his meditation before a non-virtuous karmic action has ripened into bad results, it is possible to circumvent the ripening evil karma. through his meditation. In other words, he purifies bad karma and the results of bad karma such as diseases, mental and physical obstacles to present and future practice.

[19:55]

Why is he Why is this quality attributed to Vajrasattva and not to other deities? It's because he has the central, his is the central position among the Tantric deities. As you know there are five Buddha families in Tantric Buddhism. The Vajra family, the Jewel family, the karma family, the lotus family, wheel family, dharma wheel family, why don't you know? But, Vajrasattva, when these Dhyani Buddhists are arranged together, when they're assembled together, I think, in a niche, Vajrasattva is placed in a niche because he is the Patrimony of all five Buddhadhyas.

[20:59]

In other words, he is Lord or Chief. over all the families, and not merely over one single family, as are the other family leaders. Therefore, in order to remove, to him is attributed the power to remove the obstacles or impurities that hinder beings who belong to one or another of his five families. Okay. Now, as for the appearance of the deity itself, the way in which one meditates with Vajrasattva itself, you visualize yourself, ordinary human form. Visualize also that... that within, that parallel to one another, within one's body runs the

[22:03]

three vertical psychic channels. You've probably heard of these three psychic channels, which are a special feature of tantric meditations. In the center, there is the so-called middle channel, and then there are the there is one other channel on either side, the left and the right. So this middle channel runs up through the center of one's body, and in this case, in this meditation, it exits through the top of one's crown, what is known as the aperture of Brahma. Now, you should visualize these channels, particularly the central one, And visualize further that atop one's crown there rests... He looks so serious.

[23:18]

Atop one's crown there rests this fully blossoming lotus flower. They were just frowning, trying to frown. How can that be true? Okay, there's this fully blossoming lotus whose stem, how to say, enters or rests inside the opening, the upper opening of this middle psychic channel. If you get the picture, I mean, the channel runs up to the center of your body, and it comes out the top of your crown, or opens there. And on top of that is this open petal lotus, whose stem rests within the hollow of that hollow psychic channel. All right. Now, on top of this lotus is a disc of the moon. And on top of that disc of the moon, there suddenly appears

[24:21]

The Bodhisattva, or I guess the deity, Vajrasattva. Now in some traditions, there is first you visualize the letter and then he goes through, that letter undergoes transformation, which turns into Vajrasattva. But in our Sakya tradition, our Landry tradition, it is, it just suddenly appears there, alright? Now Vajrasattva is white in color, has single face, two hands. He's seated in the full Vajrasana posture, that is, the full lotus posture, cross-legged posture. In his right hand, he holds to his heart a Vajra, a single Vajra, in a vertical,

[25:25]

And his left hand holds to the side, to his left side, a bell, which has as its people It's a stem, not a stem, it's a handle. It's a handle. It has a top, it's a handle of a vajra. Okay? It's end is, one end is the vajra and the other end is the bell. It's such a little, it's called cradle to this, to its left side. Sort of like this. It's a cradle. The other, other end is, right end, is the vajra at its heart. But he is also, he is not alone. He holds, he sits in union with his consort, the famous Vajragarbhi. Now, she is similar in appearance to him.

[26:31]

This is one of the differences between his ordinary or single form. Here you see him in his peaceful or sambhogakaya aspect. The difference is he has a consort in this meditation and he is not wearing the same garments. In this, in our visualization, he is wearing bone ornaments, ornaments of human bone. He's not wearing celestial garments of silk or jewels, jewels, ornaments, but he's wearing bone ornaments, and he has a consort. What we are doing is meditating upon Vajrasattva in his wrathful aspect, rather than his peaceful aspect. In his sambhogakaya, or peaceful aspect, he appears, usually he appears alone, he wears ornaments of precious stones and jewels, metals and so forth, and wears celestial garments.

[27:43]

or in his wrathful aspect. He has a consort and he wears ornaments of bones. In this aspect he is called Vajra Heruka. Vajra Heruka. Heruka translated literally means vampire or blood drink. Ehruka means blood drinker. Now, what are we to understand by blood drinker? We understand that blood is a symbol of mazuka, of the elixir of great bliss. that blood is the symbol of life and death in a mundane context of vital, how do you say, life and death.

[28:52]

It symbolizes the ambrosia or the elixir of great bliss. Mahasuka. Mahasuka, big chain. Yes, yes. It is the ashram which I just stressed. It is the... It is the symbol of the transcendent gnosis, transcendent wisdom of... what we call great bliss, meaning when there's a tantric state, it's a tantric term, and it represents the tantric experience, the meditator's experience of ultimate reality, which is called the non-dual, the non-duality of great bliss and godness.

[29:54]

And that this is symbolized, that state, that experience, which is total purity, total bliss, and so forth. is symbolized by blood. So Heruka experiences great bliss. It's called blood drink. And therefore, we meditated on him, not as Vajrasattva, but as Vajraheruka, meaning his wrath, tantric aspect. Now, apart from these two differences, we said there's another difference. He has a conch sword and he wears bone ornaments. He wears six kinds of bone ornaments. crowns of, it's described in the book, how many crowns he has on his head, skulls on his head. He has five, I think. And he wears, he has six kinds of ornaments, you know, bone ornaments on the head, a necklace, which is here.

[30:56]

kind of a wheel on the bone spokes, and another one on the back, which are laced together by kind of bone, how do you say, beaded beads of bones, you know, you get the picture, it's sort of a kind of a saddle. Not necessarily beaded, just bone beads, you know. I've seen these at Bowdoin. Yeah, they're just sort of like strong beads, bones that are ornamented. And then they have this, Thunis has a very beautiful big circle, a big wheel here, spokes, then the earrings. Then he has a counter together as one of the six bones. It's where you have these bracelets on the upper arms and the wrists and on the ankles. These are counted as one pattern, one of the six bone elements. Then he has a belt, bones, for which dangle, and in particular, to form a kind of an apron of interwoven bone strands.

[32:00]

You'd have to see it to really know. And it's kind of an apron that is where these bone filaments are strung together. It's quite beautiful. If you get an example, you should go in later. You should go up and look at a little picture of Hachigura. She wears this. Human bones. Okay, well done. So, Bhajuri Rukavin has consort and wears bones. He wears six ornaments of human bones and these are attributes of his wrathful aspect.

[33:04]

On top of Bhajur Satva's crown also is another tiny image of his guru who also appears in the form of Vajrasattva. In other words, a tiny image which duplicates his own appearance seated atop his crown. And atop that image, that Vajrasattva's crown, is a small half-Vajra. In other words, the Vajra has two ends, right? It has two ends. So just one end is on top of that. tiny Vajrasattva head. Now you should think of Vajra Heruka, sorry I'm still calling it Vajrasattva, Vajra Heruka as being none other than your own root guru. That they are, though with the appearance of saddha, Vajra Heruka is none other than your own root guru. Why should you do this? Because if you meditate upon your guru,

[34:12]

upon the deity is your guru, then because of your guru's own personal work for it, that you get more blessings, just as the guru is inclined to bless you in your practice. And if you meditate upon the guru in the form of the deity, then the blessings are more powerful, and the results are more effective, rather than if you meditate upon your guru as a human. So in this way, through these two, techniques, the meditator, the student who meditates in this way, receives quicker and more powerful transmissions of blessings from both guru and disciple. Atop your head, yes, there's a tiny Vajrasattva, about 6 inches tall. Atop his head, there's another tiny Vajrasattva. Atop that little Vajrasattva's head, there's a half a Vajra.

[35:14]

Oh yes, you always face him when you do it. Be looking at the wall behind you, at that place, you know, it's a place, it's a figure. It's not life. It's drawn in the pictures. In each of your bhajans, you're looking at the top of your head, and you're asking, there should be one to in measure. What is the to? To is... One to. is the distance between your outstretched thumb and the tip of your middle finger. This is one toe. Now, if you were seated properly in meditation with your back straight, that your body, from the tip of your spine to the top of your crown, would be approximately five toes in height.

[36:29]

Okay? Five toes. Now, yes. Then, if you visualize that image of Vajra Heruka on top of your head, it should, as having one top in its height, this would be just right. Okay? What is the meaning of this? This is the meaning of this. [...] What about his consort, Vajra Garvi, which means adamantine pride?

[37:40]

Vajragarbhi is as we said seated upon Vajraheruka's lap there in yogic union and she is of course facing her consort. Her right hand is stretched out over Vajraheruka's shoulder and in it she holds She holds a curved blade, you know the vajra cartridge knife? Curved cutting knife. She holds that straight out over his shoulder. When she faces her consort and holds over his shoulder and is facing her, she holds a curved blade. Straight out. Alright. And her left arm, her left hand is curved around her consort's neck.

[39:13]

In it she holds a skull cup, a human skull cup. And she is drinking blood from that skull cup. Okay, you got the picture? We will look for a picture. Just around his neck. Just around his neck. Rinpoche says don't doubt. Rinpoche says You'll hear many strange and even sometimes embarrassing things when you're discussing and describing tantric practices.

[40:29]

However, you shouldn't be embarrassed nor should you doubt them. or no doubt in practices. All you should understand is that in Tantra you use words and practices symbolically. All of these things have meaning. They have meaning to the Tantra meditator, not and not to be taken literally as an uninitiated, non-tantric person. Of course, being called to take them through ignorance, we find that very shocking, whereas for the tantric meditator, understanding the meaning and their application to his own particular experience of practice, of course, is very useful. There's great benefit to the meditator in using these symbols as, how do you say, a code for tantric experience.

[41:32]

But for the literal-minded, they may be embarrassing, they may be harmful if they reject a lot of mistaking. That's what he wants to say now. Finally back to the meditation. She is, Vajrakarari has only five of the six bone ornaments. She does not need to wear the chakra wheel, her own wheel. on her breast. Why? Because the sixth mudra, as these six kinds of ornaments are termed, the sixth mudra is that of wisdom. And she herself is a female deity, symbolizes wisdom. So she need not wear it. Male deities wear six kinds of ornaments because they need wisdom.

[42:34]

Female deities do not need it because they are wisdom. Now, after having visualized the deity and his consort, you should visualize next that within his heart, within the heart of the deity, that is within the heart of Vajra Hiruka, out of the consort. There rests, upon a lotus and moon, a small white-syllable home. Now, rays of light shine forth boundlessly from this white-syllable home within his heart to invoke all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout space, wherever they may be.

[43:40]

The Buddhists respond, the enlightened ones respond to this invocation and send back to Vajrasattva the, how do you say, the quintessence of their own mind, of their enlightened mind. their transcendent gnosis of the Dharmakaya, their transcendent gnosis of the nature of ultimate reality returns to Vajrasattva in the form of white ambrosia or white-colored elixir. Now, even though the transcendent gnosis, transcendent wisdom of ultimate reality with which these Enlightened Ones are endowed It is formless, it has no form, it is not white ambrosia, it is not something that is endowed with form at all.

[44:56]

Yet for the sake of meditation, in order to gain the effects of this transcendent consciousness, to invoke it upon ourselves in meditation, use the technique of formalizing it, that is, of visualizing it as having born. So we visualize it as assuming this transcendentness is taking on the form of this ambrosia, celestial white-colored ambrosia, which reigns throughout space. and converges upon Vajrashiruka, who is seated at the top of our crown. And as it converges upon him, it is absorbed into his own form. You understand?

[45:57]

After visualizing in this way, as we just described, reign of the elixir is what converts you to the sword into the home within his heart, you should invoke the invoke Vajra Heruka directly by praying as I, as it is written on page 32 in Deva Adhikara. O blessed one, cleanse and purify, I pray, all the accumulations of sins, obscurations, faults, failings, and impurities, which I and all sentient beings have collected throughout the world. Now, what is being purified? You say sins, obscurations, faults, failings, and impurities, Well, by this generally we mean, by this we mean unholy karma, the opposite of the ten virtuous actions of body, voice and mind, the misuse of body, voice and mind, or the ten unvirtuous kinds of actions.

[47:19]

Obscurations, by that we mean both cognitive and emotive obscurations. Emotive obscurations such as the defilements, negative mental states such as desire, hatred, delusion, pride, envy, and the like. By cognitive obscurations we mean the ignorance and the deluded misperception of reality, so that means to view it subjectively and in terms of subject and object. We don't see reality as it is, but as we want to see it and as it is not. All of this is obscurity, let the obscuration part. This is a cognitive obscuration. Faults and failings mean those conscious and unconscious violations of our Buddhist precepts and vows, either those that we have

[48:32]

that are naturally incumbent upon us like this, naturally incumbent upon us not to take life. But we might do it through ignorance or even consciously and then keep it concealed. And that the failings of having committed conscious and unconscious violations of... of our precepts, such as not to take life, and vows, such as those we have consciously taken upon ourselves at one or another ceremony, that any attempt to conceal these and not to confess them is also a failing and must be purified if it is not to hinder us in our practice. And there are six kinds of impurities, which I don't know.

[49:46]

So, when you think about all these various obscurations and obstacles that you may have accumulated either in past lives or in the present life or in the meantime, up to the moment, and realize that they are they are sure to hinder you, or if not purified, create obstacles for you in the future, and they ripen you into bad results. Then through realizing the holy negative nature, you realize that the only thing to be done with sins and sins, obscurations, faults, failings, and virtues is to discard them, to get rid of them. And if you purport in this meditation that Sri Vajraharuka

[50:47]

Sincerely, mindfully, with all four forces at your command, it will be effective. Your aim will be achieved. What are the four forces? These are the four essential factors which must be present in order for this Vajrasattva meditation to be effective in removing obstacles, sins, shortcomings. The first force is the is the force of your object of meditation. The object of your meditation is Sri Vajraharuka. Now, his function is to purify sins, obscurations, bad karma, so forth, effects of bad karma.

[52:00]

So, through the force of the nature of his function, Vajrasattva being who he is, able to do what he is, what he does with, and through your invoking him and his function. That comprises the first force which is necessary in this meditation. The second force is the force or the power of your own remorse. If you, upon considering the karmic obstacles and evil that you have accumulated through unwholesome actions, body, voice, mind, through breaking your vows, precepts, so forth, when you realize that you have only caused harm and obstacles to yourself and to others, and can only result in present and future harm, and if you sincerely repent, having done these actions, then that is called the force of remorse.

[53:06]

That's the second prerequisite. The third prerequisite is the power, is the force of resolution. If upon reflecting upon the ill that you have accomplished, that you achieved through breaking your vows or misusing body, voice and mind to the detriment of yourself and others, if you resolve that never again even at the cost of life and limb, when you repeat these same actions, unknown actions, then that constitutes the force of resolve. You decide that, having purified it this time, I will never do it again. That is the force of resolve. The fourth force is called the force of of, let's see, I can't name it, I can explain it, it's the force of the method itself, meaning that if you have a pure object such as

[54:24]

Vajrasattva, and if you have within your mind genuine remorse for your past bad actions, as well as a firm resolve never to repeat them, then it is possible, it is possible to purify your bad karma, your obstacles and obscurations. If these The three are present. These first three forces are present. It is possible to purify every sin, every bad karma, no matter how great it is, even if it is one of the five immeasurable sins, five very heavy sins, you can purify it through this Vajrasattva, Vajraharuka meditation, if all these factors are present. Why? Because sin itself has no inherent nature of its own.

[55:39]

It is like virtue, a product of causes and conditions, and devoid of any inherent nature of its own. It is not something which is immutable, not something that has an inherent identity of its own. All that can be done with sin, is to get rid of it, to purify it. Because it has the nature of being purifiable. It can be purified through this meditation of Vajrasattva when all these forces are present. And so the fourth force consists of the knowledge and confidence that sins, no matter how great, may be purified through the right performance of the special Heruka meditation. These four forces are, must be present and they have been explained to you this evening exactly as the great Gautama Landakpa Rinpoche expounded them to Vishnu Rinpoche.

[56:51]

They're so important that Rinpoche repeated them to me. Three times. I spare you the second and third repetitions, but take it, take his word for it. They're important. You need, in order to purify anything, you must have all these four forces present in your practice. All right. Now, to return to your visualization, remember you invoked the transcendent gnosis of all the Buddhists throughout space. And that transcendent gnosis rained down upon, rained down throughout space in the form of, of ambrosia, white-colored ambrosia. And it was absorbed into the white silver home within the father.

[57:53]

that is in Vajrahiruka's heart. Now, at this point, after you invoked him, his blessings to purify you of all sins and obscurations, in response to your prayer, then this white ambrosia begins to to flow from the white silver womb within his heart. It fills up his entire body. In other words, as if his body were like an empty glass. It fills it up throughout. His entire form becomes filled up. And then, now it begins to pour over into the form of the mother, of his consort. It is... It passes through the... father's Vajra into the mother's Padma and then fills up her entire body.

[58:54]

And as it begins, then as it completely fills up her form also, it overflows at the crown of their heads, both their heads and from every part of their body, from every pore of their body, Hmm. Mentioned the... the... yab yunki kule, kule, the... the... dootsi gani bap keres. Did he come to the cool tancha that you were raising? Yes. Yak tukhong yi tukhsang yi me chakpa bali. Yak kuli gulong, [...] kuli

[60:05]

is that it does not descend from, it doesn't overflow at the top of their heads or from their body. That's a single aspect of Vajrasattva meditations. What it does is that it flows out after passing from the father's body into the mother's body. It fills up her body also and then begins to flow out from their union. And it flows down over the lotus petals. And it flows down through the lotus into the top of one's crown. That is, remember the aperture of Brahma, the top of your own crown. And it proceeds to flow downward through your body, into all its parts, and to fill the entire body And as it passes through your body and fills your body, you should visualize that all the illnesses, all evil spirits, all sins and obscurations are completely purified and washed out of your entire being, both physical and mental, wherever.

[61:34]

And you can visualize them as being Yeah, well it says here in the book, it says that they are purified and has feces and urine, but it doesn't say that at all. That's wrong. It just says that you can visualize all these obscurations and impurities as being present in your body and exiting from your body at the... as it says, the two lower passages, as well as the soles of your feet.

[62:38]

But it does not say that you have to visualize this as feces and urine. That's quite wrong. It says that in Tibetan it is visualized as smoky liquid or pus and blood, etc., that usually... Excuse me? That's a good distinction. Yeah, really. No, it's not. It's like, like sins usually, when you go into the details, I've seen it in others, sins are usually thought of as smoky, kind of a smoky colored liquid. That's the way you get rid of it. And for evil spirits are in the form of like, even like little snakes or scorpions and spiders and insects like that. Translations. Yeah, I'm saying, it says here, I mean, somebody just read it, the word Shantideva, it's just the two lower passages, they have purified it, but he decided to throw in, well, it's because the two lower passages, you know, feces or urine, but that is for tourists.

[63:45]

And I've never heard that. Everything minus that, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You have all the white embers filling your body. The vision lies exiting out from your body and disappears into emptiness. It doesn't say that. But your entire body becomes pristine clear as if there is nothing. You really want to smell. You get the feeling that you're really radiant, pure, white inside. Filled with these embers, you're just shining. All right. You, upon reciting the mantra as many times as you can, or will, you again invoke directly Bhajahiruka, who is seated upon the crown of your head, with the words of the prayer, which I don't have available to me, of the prayer found on page 36, in which you address him as

[65:02]

It's not written here. You have to add the word Gombo, which means Lord. In the beginning, this prayer says, Lord, or protector, Lord, I, deluded by ignorance, have broken and spoiled the vows. Guru and protector be my refuge. To the highest Vajradhara, possessed of the essence great compassion. The chief of these I will be refuge. I confess all my transgressions of the root and branch vows of body, voice, and mind. Cleanse and purify, I pray, all the accumulations of sins, obscurations, faults, failings, and impurities." So you invoke, again invoke the power, his power to purify. And they confess before him all the In particular, all the broken precepts that you might have, broken precepts involved that you might have committed, for example.

[66:17]

For example, all the misdeeds, the misuse of body, voice and mind that you might have incurred, you might have incurred through the performance of what are called natural That means it kind of goes against the moral nature to misuse the body, voice and mind. For example, taking the life of other beings, telling lies, gossiping, envying or harboring false views and malice and so forth. The performance of these so-called natural violations, natural misdeeds. Um... Um... Hmm... Well...

[67:24]

These are violations of vows, meaning they don't apply to all beings naturally. For example, it's a misuse of body, voice and mind if one takes life, telekinesis and so forth, for everybody, no matter who does it. But then there are certain precepts or certain vows which only those who have taken upon themselves the vows will be held responsible for. For example, the Vajrayana vows. Only those who have taken on those vows would incur the sin of downfall through not practicing them or not observing the vow. even apply to all beings naturally. So these sins and faults which one may have incurred

[68:41]

carelessness or ignorance or for whatever other reason, you now confess to Vajradhara himself and you reveal, you hold nothing back, however terrible they may be, however you resist confessing them, out loud to some other person, that we call Vajradhara. You completely reveal, open up your mind, confess, acknowledge that you have committed these sins. Oh yes, the other kind is called overt violations, meaning that these are violations, conscious violations of your precepts, special precepts and vows you have taken about yourself. So both natural and overt violations. You confess and ask for his help in purification.

[69:54]

This applies also, as we said before, for all accumulations of the obscurations. That is, you ask for his help in purifying all the cognitive and emotive obscurations and all impurities. There are six kinds of impurity, which Rinpoche promises to explain later. So, having invoked him sincerely, having prayed in this manner, you should visualize or you should think that your own guru, who is sitting on top of your head in the form of Vajrasattva, responds to your prayer and says, very well, or something to that effect, son of a good family, you are purified of all your sins, obscurations, faults, downfalls, and impurities. From this time henceforth, you should not commit them again.

[70:56]

You should refrain from committing these sin actions." And you think that he is very pleased with you, looks upon you with favor. And as he does so, then you should visualize, you should think, that he has known your sins and your faults, that he has accepted your confession and your purification efforts in the practice of Vajrasattva's meditation, and that you do feel that all is purified between you and the Buddha, and that now Vajrasattva dissolves into white light and is absorbed downward into your own consciousness. and that your own body, voice, and mind become none other than the body, voice, and mind of Bhaja Yuga himself. And you should meditate upon this way, thinking that your own form is radiantly white, quiet as pure snow, radiant, clear, absolutely without flaw, and having nothing but nature, total pristine purity.

[72:11]

Then, you will... You should develop it in life. Okay? Excuse me? Oh, no, no, no. You're just... You're your own body. Life is clean and pure as far as you start from. Your own body becomes very, very clean and pure and not... not solid, flesh and blood. like the deity's body is, translucent as a rainbow, very, very pure and clean. And then for a while, you sit and meditate upon the non-dual clarity and voidness of your own mind, which is the ultimate nature of Vajrasattva itself. It is that Vajrasattva, the ultimate nature of your own mind, which has been evoked and through whose power you have been purified. Just think you are Vajrasattva.

[73:18]

Now, then finally you dedicate the merit of all this that you have acquired through this practice of Vajrasattva's meditation by saying something like, by this virtue may I quickly attain the stage of Vajrasattva and place upon this stage also all living beings without exception. Now we had a few questions. One here, one there. Well, can I answer off the top of my head, or do you want me to recourse? Well, my answer is, it depends. For example, in sinful actions or in unwholesome processes, the thought is the first step.

[74:24]

You have to have intention, which would include the thought. For example, I would kill so-and-so. That would be a sinful thought. But if you don't follow through it, then you don't have the sin of killing. However, the first step is the conscious thought construction, I will kill. So the second step is the preparation. For example, you go out and buy a Saturday night special. Then that is preparation. Then the third step is the actual perpetration. But I'm talking about desire, where you're not simply doing the thing. I want to kill people. I'm not attending to the desire. Well, it's a thought. Do you mean just a random thought, or like that? Well, in itself, you can't call it wholesome indefinitely. It's an unwholesome thought, just, you know, because even the thought must arise from anger, or else the cruelty, if you even have a random thought, I will kill, so and so, you know.

[75:27]

It would be effective for it, but there you're only purifying unwholesome thoughts, which really comes under this category of obscurations. Cognitive and emotive, it's one of those angers. It's one of the desire, hatred, and delusion which are emotive obscurations. But, more specifically, there are other thoughts, not necessarily Kelsang Sangha. For example, the Vajrayana rules. For example, if you think of things as being empty, all things as being void, that is breaking a vow, if you think of that. But you might think of it that way, or you might think of certain things that are Vajrayana, and you've broken your vow, and it's just a thought. I take it you haven't read your Vajrayana vows recently? No, but how did you say it? For example, other thoughts, like there, it is not so bad, it is just a random angry thought. But there are other thoughts, for example, if you know your 14 vows, there are some who may not have taken those 14 vows in detail, but if you break those just by so much as a thought, for example, if you perceive things not as they really are, if you don't, if you think of things as being

[76:50]

for example, real. You've broken your Vajrayana vows. Go read up your Vajrayana vows and you can see that there's so much is at fault, even though in an ordinary person, an ordinary person, in an ordinary person those very thoughts may not be a violation of any vow, but for you, the tantric practitioner, it can be purified by this meditation. That's right, it's natural and overt. It's rooted in the, it's one of the motive devalas. Okay, you want to ask is it virtuous or non-virtuous? They are non-virtues. They are not right. They are rooted in desire. Desire is the cause of continued deluded existence.

[77:54]

It is that which binds beings to delusion, to suffering. Therefore, there is no way that you can conceive a desirous thought as being anything but non-virtue. It can, however, be purified. You got it? You got it. A healthy act is an innocent thought. Yes, this is the thought. I asked him, I just said the mere thought of desire. That thought, such wicked thought can be purified through this meditation of Vajrasattva. Of course. Now you're talking about beauty, taking thoughts as being thoughts per se. In Vajrayana there are other things you can do with wicked lustful thoughts, like transforming them into wisdom. That goes into a view where you're asking whether it can be purified. It goes without saying that if it's unwholesome it can be purified, even if it's in one of the five unforgivable sins, like killing a mother, a father, or a Buddha, or something like that.

[79:08]

So it goes without saying that minor unwholesome things like lustful thoughts can be purified. All right, Helen had a question. Let's see, I'm back here. Oh, about confession, about confessing your sins. I'd really like to know about that. How specific do you need to be? Do you visualize the sins that you have actually committed, these things that you have committed in your heart, hidden in your heart? Whatever. Do you actually visualize the experience? I can turn back. I can turn back to when I was 11 and I said something really designed to destroy my life. The foolish thing that I said. I can bring it back.

[80:11]

In form, technical, everything. Do I do that and confess it and do it? Or do I just lump it all together with all the other rotten things I've done? First of all, you can lump all sins in generally. Take all sins very generally and say all the unwholesome and terrible things that I may have accumulated from beginningless times, like fighting poets and wine and all of that, and just really sort of in a blanket manner try to cover everything that you might possibly have recently been sorry about, even though you don't remember specific instances. So you confess all that.

[81:16]

But if you have specific instance where you know that you yourself did something that you regret, you did it, there are some things that stick in your memory. that have not been forgotten, that still remain within memory as a sore point, as a sticking point for bad karma, as something that pricks your conscience and reminds you of something that you have done that was not right, that was harmful, that is in need of purification or that you wish that you had not done. and you are not sure that you are purified of having done that. In this way, those you should dwell upon in particular, and pray especially that those could be purified by this meditation. For example, what you said to your mother when you were 11 years old, that would be something that you would dwell upon and pray for special absolution until you feel that you have been purified.

[82:20]

Now, the results of this meditation of Vajrasattva are that you will, through repeated practice, come to feel very light and purified in body and mind. You will feel as if freed from these mental burdens and their physical effects up in your body. And you will start to have dreams. When you know When you know that you are purifying these sins and obscurations, then you start to have the following dreams. When you dream, for example, of seeing Vajra Haruka himself in person, you dream of a deity. Or when you dream of the sun and the moon rising, mind you, not setting. The sun and the moon.

[83:21]

You dream of bathing or dressing yourself in white garments. You dream of drinking white liquids such as milk. You dream of... That's all I remember. Okay. These sort of dreams, or when you dream of waking up, things like that. All of these are signs that you're upwaking up. All of these are signs that your meditation is progressing nicely, that you are being purified. You should keep it up to be really assured that you're purified. You can do that prostrations and the refuge can be taken together, if you wish, or you can take them separately, 100,000 each, or you can combine refuge and prostrations.

[84:32]

Then after you've completed, as I said, you can combine prostrations and the refuge, do 100,000 combined, meaning you've got to do 100,000 refuge recitations, which you can combine with 100,000 prostrations. Or you can do those separately, yeah. After you've done 100,000 refuges, next you do the Vajrasattva meditation. 100,000 recitations of this 100 syllable mantra is required. You can do as many as you want, but the minimum is 100,000, yes. I've never heard anybody advise you to skip it out. In each of these four stages of meditation, each has a specific purpose.

[85:33]

For example, you recall that we said that refuge is for removing the obstacles to entering, really getting into the as a stream of Buddhist spirituality and so forth. Then the Vajrasattva's purpose is to remove the obstacles. Once you're in removing the obstacles that you might encounter in your practice, then next you want to build up merit to offer. you offer the mandala offering, so forth, then by that time, once your mind is pure, you also need to develop this rapport with the guru, so forth. So there is a progression among you. This is not to say that you absolutely must follow that order right down to the mind. At least, at the very least, the refuge, the hundred thousand refuge, recitations must precede all of these. After that, I suppose it's all right, he says, to mix the remaining three up, but there's really no point.

[86:35]

Can we do it if it doesn't count? Oh, sure. Sure, no harm in it. Of course, it's not required that one... must go into a retreat in order to accomplish these foundational meditations. It's obvious that there will be many advantages if one is able to perform them while in retreat. You'll finish much quicker, for one thing, if you're able to concentrate only.

[87:37]

However, if one is unable to do that, it is, of course, permissible to do it in any way that you can manage, and one is to be encouraged to do it. There are people who have spent three or four years on that, each one. They would do, for example, a hundred recitations a day, or a hundred prostrations a day, until after three or four years later, they would have really accomplished a hundred thousand of them. It takes much longer, but if that's the way you've got to do it, there's nothing wrong with it. Yes, sir? Questioner 2 I saw, I don't know, but I can't hear it. [...] Guruji's own experience in his practice of these foundation meditations is that it's much better to do them while in retreat.

[88:43]

He has tried it both ways and his experience is that there are too many interruptions, one's energy is not at its peak. One has many interruptions, it takes too long, and one can't keep up with the single-pointed constant practice that you get in a retreat situation. It's just his experience. It's preferable to do it in retreat rather than elsewhere. form of prostrations that we recommend? Between prostrations alone and what kind of justification? As Guruji urges you to combine the 100,000 frustrations with the restoration of refuge

[89:54]

Because by doing this, you have the amount of time that you need. I mean, you recite one refuge prayer with each performance of one prostration, do this a hundred thousand times, and then you're finished. At one swoop, you're finished both. It's good if you can also meditate there. It's like you're going.

[91:06]

Yes, Rumiche says that now you will all join him in meditating. For a while, you'll excuse me. I have an appointment with the help spirit. This won't take long, Rumiche, I assure you. Jñānā, jñānā, [...] jñānā SONG CHUG PAR TSUR DANG ZHIG ZHAG SONG CHUG TOK GYI GYUR SUG GYI TSUR DANG GYI DRO LA TEN TSUR SONG CHUG CHUG PHAI CHUG WUI TSUR GYI DANG GYI GYUR TEN TSUR SONG CHUG CHUG KHO FUNG TSOR BAR ZHAG GYI WI GYUR TSUR TOG GYI LANG TSOR MO NYANG TSOR LONG WA GYUR WUI TSUR GYI DANG GYI GYUR TEN TSUR SONG CHUG CHUG KHO FUNG TSOR BAR ZHAG GYI WI GYUR TSUR TOG GYI LANG TSOR MO

[92:18]

NYAM SA LUNG WAI GYE WOYE DUN GYI DANG GYI GYE DENG DU THONG GYI GYE KHO PO NGON DOK PAR KYAR GYI HWI GYI DAK GYI LANG SA MO NYAM SA LUNG WAI GYE WOYE RANG GYI GYE WOYE PHEN MAI

[92:37]

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