Transcription of the teaching before empowerment
Today we have the initiation of Vajrasattva or Dorje Senpa in Tibetan. Briefly, I have already told you yesterday what is the purpose of this empowerment. Today’s Vajrasattva empowerment is mainly for the practice of purification, purification of the self. Yesterday I briefly mentioned how important it is to have compassion in your heart, and I also explained a little bit about the meaning of bodhichitta compassion. That is, I didn’t talk about it in great detail and in an extended way. If I had talked about it in detail, I could have talked about it for days on end, one topic would have led to another, and it would have become a very long story, explaining what bodhichitta is. But I have told you in general terms so that if someone asks you a question about what bodhichitta is, you can answer it. And I have told you what you can answer people in response to such a question, what is bodhichitta. I have also explained the importance of generating the mind of bodhichitta. If you hate someone, you should hate someone based on compassion. If you even love someone, it should still be based on compassion. In other words, without compassion there will be no real hatred. Everything should be based on compassion. The source of all these emotions should be purely compassion.
Yesterday we received the siddhis of compassion. What does it mean to have the siddhis of compassion? It means that our compassion should never end. It should be continuous. That is the true siddhis of compassion. And we should have equal compassion for animals and humans, for example. That is, there should be no difference. Suppose we have more compassion for humans than for animals, or vice versa. And also, we should have equal compassion for all people. So, it is not that we have more compassion for the poor than for the rich, or vice versa. There should be no difference in our compassion that we have for all people. And in order for true compassion to grow in us, it is necessary to put an end to our samsaric mind. But we can’t do that yet.
Because we live in sansara, our mind is also samsaric, overshadowed. Our compassion arises in us sometimes, from time to time. But we cannot maintain it within us all the time. Sometimes it arises, then it disappears, and so on. But why does it still arise in us sometimes? Because we have a connection with our previous incarnations. That is, we have imprints of compassion due to our connection with Avalokiteshvara of our past incarnations. And therefore, due to these imprints, sometimes compassion does arise in us. But it arises not for a long time, it ends rather quickly. And this again happens because of our obscurations, because of the negative mind and the imprints of which we have more than the imprints of compassion of our beginningless births in samsara.
For our compassion to be unwavering, we need some kind of support, some kind of encouragement or blessing. Whose blessings do we need for this? The blessing of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara. This is the tenth-level bodhisattva whose compassion is the greatest and absolutely unchanging. That’s why yesterday we received his blessing, received his siddhis, received his support to develop our compassion, which we desperately need in order to help other sentient beings. We have to make compassion balanced, strong, robust in order to effectively help other living beings. And now that we have received this blessing, now we need to reflect. What should we do next in order to gain the ability to help other sentient beings effectively and perfectly? The next thing we need to do is purification.
Because we are stained with samsaric mud from the original time of samsara. Yes, I think mud is a good word, we are stained with samsaric mud and we need to wash it off. For example, if you’re working somewhere, if you’re working in the garden for example, your hands are stained with dirt. And before you go into your clean house after finishing your work, you need to wash off this dirt from your hands, you need to wash yourself, you need to wash your hands properly.
When you have already washed, you can go to your house with peace of mind and relax on a clean couch. And this symbolizes the purification of body, speech and mind that we need to make with the help of Vajrasattva practice. And it is this purity that we need in order to effectively help other living beings.
When you are full of negative emotions, when your body, speech and mind are not purified, you are very much subject to the harmful influence of maras, or demons, or spirits, whatever you may call it. Therefore, purification is an extremely necessary factor for you to effectively help other living beings. Then, when you are pure, you will be able to give real effective help, that is, to impart your purity to them.
For example, if I have dirty hands, and I take a clean glass with those dirty hands, that glass will also get dirty. Therefore, in order that the glass will not be dirty, I must first wash my hands myself. And then I can take a clean glass with clean hands so that nothing gets dirty. And the same can be said about our helping other living beings. We need purification for that. So, I have been telling you about the importance of purification. There are many different ways of purification, many lines of transmission with different purification practices. But the main deity of purification is Vajrasattva. Each deity has its own function. And the main, the only function of Vajrasattva is to purify living beings from negative karma. Avalokiteshvara’s duty is to awaken compassion in living beings and liberate the beings of all six worlds into the pure land of Amitabha Buddha. Manjrushri’s function is to get rid of ego, of selfishness, and to generate wisdom. And according to their functions, the deities change their form.
That is, yesterday we received the devotion of compassion, the devotion of Avalokiteshvara, and today we receive the devotion of purification, the devotion of Vajrasattva Buddha. So, as I said, all the deities, in Tibetan Buddhism, have their own various duties and functions. But that doesn’t mean that Vajrasattva, for example, doesn’t have compassion. Of course, he has compassion. And whichever deity manifests, whichever deity you address, you must remember that they all manifest from the dharmakaya of your guru. And from nothing else. If you search for some other source of manifestation of all deities, you will find nothing. All your search will come down to one source only – that is the guru. There can be nothing separate from the guru. If you find any deity separate from the guru, I can guarantee you one hundred percent that you will not get any blessings or any siddhis by practicing it. And I am one hundred percent sure of that.
So, the deities change their form according to their functions. But their source is the guru. Although, if we emphasize guru, it may cause some discomfort if we talk about guru. So, I will express myself a little differently. The source of all deities is the enlightened mind – the dharmakaya. This dharmakaya, which is manifold in fact. Although the dharmakaya is invisible and originally has no form or anything, anything can manifest from it. And only from the dharmakaya can there be all these many manifestations, not from the sambhogakaya, not from the nirmanakaya. The source of all manifestations is the dharmakaya. And in another way, you can say it is originally Samantabhadra, either it is Vajradhara or it is Amitabha. All of them are synonymous. Or let’s say dharmakaya, which has certain symbols. The symbol of the dharmakaya are these three buddhas, Samantabhadra, Vajradhara and Amitabha. And the dharmakaya is inseparable from what is now within ourselves. But now we cannot call it dharmakaya yet. We can call it dharmakaya only when we reach full enlightenment. Then it will be realized as dharmakaya.
So, from the dharmakaya arise different deities in different aspects, different forms, such as the four-armed Avalokiteshvara, Vajrasattva and so on. I hope you now understand very clearly what comes from where. Otherwise, you will be confused. Otherwise, you will have a complete confusion about where all these deities appear from. They appear, I tell you again, from enlightened dharmakaya. And besides, when you receive this Vajrasattva initiation today, you should remember that you can receive it only on the basis of compassion. As I have told you before, without compassion there can be nothing. Without compassion there can also be no true purification. So, your purification must be based on compassion. Also, as I have told you before, love must be based on compassion. Hate should also be based on compassion. Everything should be based on compassion.
And also, it is very important to realize that we receive initiation through our mind, not through our body. Not this illusion-like body. It is your mind that receives initiation. It is through your mind that some effect arises, for example, on your body. That is, all this happens through the mind. First your mind receives the blessing and only then you feel it on the body level, as an unusual sensation, lightness and so on. When we, for example, do some rituals or recite mantras, our mind does it. Our mind recites the mantra, our mind visualizes itself as a deity and so on. And then when you have already finished practicing, for example, Medicine Buddha, you already think: “My shoulder was hurting a lot. Then I did Medicine Buddha practice, and I feel relieved. I feel that I feel better, the pain is gone, the pain is going away.”
But it all happens due to your mind, you should understand it. That is, we first accept the blessing at the level of the mind, not at the level of this impermanent human body. Now do you understand the main thing that I want to tell you now and what I want to convey to you? After the mind receives the blessing, the body starts to feel differently, for example, it feels lighter, pain goes away and so on. Do you understand what I want to tell you? It is the mind that recites the Medicine Buddha mantra. It is your mind that visualizes the Medicine Buddha. And after that, when the mind is purified, true purification takes place. All of this originates in our mind. And after that it all affects our body. So, the body is secondary to the mind. When you receive Vajrasattva initiation, purification takes place first of all at the level of your mind. And you should understand this very well and keep it in mind all the time, what comes from where and what is primary and what is secondary, and what is initiation and how initiation works. You have to understand it.
And now we will proceed to the first stage of our today’s Vajrasattva initiation. And we will begin with purification.
Transcription of the teaching after empowerment
Today is the 14th lunar day of the month of Saga Dawa. Tomorrow will be the 15th lunar day. The main day of the month of Saga Dawa when the triple date of the birthday, enlightenment and passing into Parinirvana of our guru Shakyamuni Buddha will be celebrated. And it is the most important day of the year.
So, I ask you, all my brothers and sisters, please do not miss the most precious opportunity that you have this time. It is not known, by the way, whether you will have it again next year. There is no guarantee that you will live to see the next one. So make the most of tomorrow. And whatever practice you do, never forget to immediately dedicate your merits to enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. To all mother sentient beings, don’t forget to dedicate merit. Because as it is said in one sutra, even if you recite just once the mantra OM MANI PADME HUM, then one should immediately devote merit to enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings.
All the mother sentient beings should be devoted to merit. Otherwise, as it is said in one sutra, very clearly and distinctly said, no matter how much merit you have accumulated over many kalpas, no matter how many virtues you have accumulated, no matter how many practices you have done up to the present day, if you forget to dedicate them to all the mothers of sentient beings, one tiny moment of anger, not even a minute, but a moment of anger, will incinerate and burn your virtues and merit. One tiny moment of anger will destroy the kalpas of your virtues if you have not properly dedicated them to enlightenment for the sake of the mothers of sentient beings.
So, even if you light just one candle or one lamp, immediately dedicate this offering of one lamp to all sentient beings. And then, if you dedicate to all sentient beings your every virtue, every mantra and so on, your virtues will increase to limitlessness. And you will be able to bring infinite benefit to all sentient beings with their help. And they, these merits and virtues, will remain with you until your liberation and enlightenment, and will even push you towards liberation and enlightenment and help you to achieve it faster. Therefore, never waste the precious opportunity that will be given to you, starting from today’s midnight to tomorrow’s midnight, during these next twenty-four hours.
I think it’s half past eight in the evening. I’m going to go now to make a bark around the Swayambhunath stupa. Because this is a precious stupa, a very auspicious stupa. You probably know that it is a self-built stupa that is still surviving. And one bark around this stupa takes three kilometers, one circumambulation takes three kilometers, and I will make as many circles around it as I can at all. Perhaps I will do a bark around the Swayambhunath stupa all night tonight, and I will dedicate all the merit from these circumambulations to all of you, my brothers and sisters and all sentient beings, your good, good health, your longevity, and also that you turn your mind more and more to the Buddha’s dharma practice and attain liberation as soon as possible in order to liberate all other sentient beings.
And please, I remind you once again, do your best on this blessed, precious, auspicious day, do not waste this precious opportunity to accumulate immense, immense merit from virtues. Please justify the precious opportunity given to you, which opens from 12 o’clock at night until 12 o’clock the next night. This is my little advice to you, my brothers and sisters.
Now we will part with you until tomorrow. Tomorrow we will have the final, final, final initiation of Dorje Namdrolma or Vajravidarana, the special deity of purification.
Once again, I ask you to justify the opportunity that will be given to you tomorrow, the 15th smart day of the holy month of Saga Dawa. Until then, do your practice, do your best, and farewell until tomorrow.
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