The Protectors (Dharmapalas), by H.E. Shenphen Rinpoche

The impulse to believe the absurd when presented with the unknowable is called religion. Whether this is wise or unwise is the domain of doctrine. Once you understand someone's doctrine, you understand their rationale for believing the absurd. At that point, it may no longer seem absurd. You can get to both sides of this conondrum from here.

The Protectors (Dharmapalas), by H.E. Shenphen Rinpoche

Postby admin » Fri Feb 03, 2023 5:32 am

The Protectors (Dharmapalas)
A Teaching Given By
His Eminence Shenpen Dawa Rinpoche
In Los Angeles, California
September, 1988



The first protector I will speak about is Shenpa. Shenpa is very important for His Holiness' swift rebirth, because he is the main protector of the Nyingma lineage. Shenpa is the main guardian for all of our practices: Troma, Phurba, etc. He is one of the divine protectors that Guru Rinpoche entrusted the terma teachings with, and basically he controls most of the terma teachings.

An interesting thing about Shenpa is that my father met him several times. I'll tell you about one incident.

Normally, Shenpa was in very close contact with my father all the time, and really served him. It was very difficult for us to even see Shenpa's face, because he was very wrathful, and he doesn't show his face as easily as other dharmapalas do. Shenpa is very conservative. Also, it isn't easy to call on Shenpa to do things, but he could manifest to Rinpoche in person.

Shenpa was the one who brought my mother and father together. Shenpa had gone to my mother's father in person. My maternal grandfather was a military commander named Shig Go Tey. He was governor of the province called Shig Go Tey, which is very large. My grandfather was also the 13th Dalai Lama's personal cabinet advisor. He was an aristocrat, but at the same time he was also a minor terton, connected with Guru Rinpoche's teachings. He would always carry a phurba in his chuba.

At one time my grandfather was looking for a particular text in the area of Lhasa when Shenpa appeared to him in person. He told him that the text could be found with Dudjom Rinpoche, who was in Lhasa at the time. My maternal grandfather had never heard of Dudjom Rinpoche. Shenpa told him where Dudjom Rinpoche was staying and said, "Send your daughter to request the text." Before he left, he told him, "I have a present for you." He gave him a bow and arrow, then walked away from the room and disappeared.

My grandfather was so caught up with talking to Shenpa that he forgot that he was in his inner chamber, which was inaccessible to anyone. The chambers are constructed in such a way that the inner chamber is private, and there is an outer chamber where servants guard the inner chamber so that no one enters. Immediately after Shenpa left he realized that there was no way for this person to enter, and he thought, "How did this person get into my inner chamber?" He rushed out to where his servants were guarding him and asked them where was the man who had just given him the bow and arrow. The servants said there was no such person, that they had been there the whole time and hadn't let anyone in. That night my grandfather had a very positive indication that he would meet Dudjom Rinpoche and receive teachings from him.

That same night, Shenpa went to Dudjom Rinpoche and told him, "I am going to get the consort for you, so tomorrow morning, let whoever comes in to see you. Set up an auspicious offering on the table, and tomorrow a person will come who will be your future wife."

Most of Dudjom Rinpoche's servants at that time were monks, so the next day Rinpoche told them, "If anyone comes today, no matter who they are, I want to see them. A woman will come to see me so don't stop her from seeing me." Later that day Rinpoche met my mother.

After that, Dudjom Rinpoche went to my mother's house and asked my grandfather for her. It was at that time that my grandfather showed Rinpoche the gift that Shenpa had given him, because he felt that the person who had given it to him was a protector. Rinpoche recognized that the bow and arrow was the same bow and arrow that he had placed in his monastery for the protectors. Shenpa had taken the bow and arrow all the way to Lhasa to give to my grandfather. My grandfather then became Rinpoche's disciple.

Shenpa is a wisdom being with very high realization. My name, "Shenpen," means "benefactor of others," but "Shenpa" means "the hunter" --he hunts for human life.

The reason we pray to Shenpa is because he was in such close contact with Rinpoche. Shenpa gives tremendous blessing and protection to students who are in retreat, and for all practitioners of the Tersar lineage. Shenpa vowed that he would continue to benefit people until the next Buddha comes so that the Tersar lineage, its protectors and blessings wouldn't be lost. So this is a direct prediction and prophecy of Shenpa.

Shenpa came to my father many times like this to help him. Once, when Rinpoche was traveling from one part of Tibet to another --a dangerous thing to do since there are bandits everywhere -- he wasn't able to get where he wanted to by nightfall. My father, mother, and three or four servants, that's all the people who were in the group, got stuck on a hill. Suddenly they looked up on the hill and saw 30 or 40 bandits.

My mother was very worried. There were no other travelers in sight, and she thought they would all be robbed and killed by those bandits. Bandits do that kind of thing. They were completely desperate. The bandits were howling and making all kinds of noises and coming down the mountain when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, another band of 30 to 40 riders appeared and started riding up from the ravine below, carrying guns and bows and arrows. The bandits coming down from above were frightened and retreated because they were outnumbered.

The group of riders from below then came up to Rinpoche, and the leader got off his horse asking him, "Oh ho, where are you traveling?" Rinpoche answered, "I am traveling to Lhasa. Where are you going?" He replied, "The next village." Rinpoche thanked him for coming at just the right moment. The leader asked him, "Who are you?" Rinpoche replied, "Oh, I'm a padma guru, I've been recognized as Pedma Guru. My name is Dudjom Rinpoche." Then the leader said, "I've heard a lot about you. Aren't you the terton Gillay Terton's reincarnation?" Rinpoche said, "Yes, I have been recognized as such." So immediately the leader made prostrations to Rinpoche. Rinpoche asked him, "Do I know you?" The leader replied, "Yes, you know me, but it isn't important for you to remember me at this moment, but I know you." That person was Shenpa.

Later that night, at 3:00 a.m. in the morning, Rinpoche had a dream. Shenpa appeared to him and said, " I came to serve you. Forgive me if I fooled you. That was not my intention. You were traveling in a dangerous place, so I came to serve you. You have commanded me many times to come in times of need." The next morning, when Rinpoche got up, he made a very elaborate offering to the dharmapalas to thank them for making the bandits go away.

Now he was able to complete his journey safely. The chieftain, or Shenpa, had looked familiar to Rinpoche. He felt he had seen him before, but he couldn't figure out where. He was completely disguised as a bandit, but when Rinpoche looked at his feet, he saw he was barefoot. People don't ride barefoot, so it occurred to Rinpoche later on that that was a subtle sign of the protector.

Shenpa serves Rinpoche's disciples too. One time there was a disciple who went into retreat in Kongbo during the winter, and this disciple was completely cut off by snow and dying of starvation. Right in front of his retreat house someone dragged the body of a dead deer. The disciple was meditating inside when a voice said to him, "I've brought you food down there. Eat it." When he went outside and looked, he saw the dead deer and brought it inside, and he was able to do another three months of retreat. Later on, Shenpa told Rinpoche, "One of your students was dying, so I took him deer meat."

The activity of the dharmapalas is incredible. Dharmapalas are wisdom beings that can help you attain realization. Needless to say, there are other protectors, like Trod Gyel Harmo, Tseringma, and other protectors and protectresses that protect the lineage, but Shenpa is the main protector of the Dudjom Tersar lineage. When Dudjom Lingpa discovered a certain terma, Shenpa was there to help him, taking the terma from the rock. Shenpa is committed to the Dudjom lineage and to whoever practices in the lineage. If a practitioner calls on him, he will be there to answer. This doesn't mean he will answer all the small detailed things, but if there is crucial need, he will be there. So Shenpa practice is important.

Then, along with this practice, you can add one more practice. It starts with: Kung Jo! Kung Tu Zang Mo Ying Gee Yum. This is the prayer for Mamo Ekadzati, Dorje Legpa and Ralchigma. Sometimes, if you do the Dam Cheen Chi Tor, then you can just recite the Ma Za Dor Sum. That would be great.

If you make the dharmapala offerings, and do dharmapala practice like Ma Za Dor Sum or Shenpa practice, it is important to keep count of your repetitions. You can't just say it two or three times and just leave it. Unfortunately, we have never done an intensive dharmapala practice together. When I practice, if I have time, sometimes I will recite one mala, but not less than 21 times. It's very important to invoke them.

What dharmapalas really are is our confidence. They support our confidence to be able to reach out and help others. In fact, if we lack confidence, dharmapalas have a way of subtly communicating with us to bring our confidence back. Confidence is the right way of respecting the teachings, the right way of benefiting people. That is the confidence it will bring up in us.

In fact, dharmapala is the subtle communication of the Buddha in the sambhogakaya realm in which we have developed the fine perception of seeing them, so if you see the form of the dharmapala, you have also seen the form of the Buddha in the dharmakaya realm. Dharmapalas are the subtle communications between these two levels.

Dharmapalas will manifest in an ordinary way because our understanding is ordinary, but when we purify our perception, they manifest in an extraordinary way. It depends on our perception. Dharmapalas are the real communication of a subtle body, and through them we can experience our subtle body in a way that we have never experienced before. Through the dharmapala, we can experience the subtle body immediately in our everyday situations. So these two practices, Shenpa and Ma Za Dor Sum, are important.

The third dharmapala is optional, and it is that of my protectress, Kong Jhyo. When I was young she saved me many times from death. I was very naughty when I was young, and I gave my parents a lot of problems. My protectress, Kongsen Denma, came to me several times and saved me. I've seen her several times from childhood to adulthood, and whenever I have a problem, she always comes up. Rinpoche, my father, would always say: "Don't forget to appease her, and don't forget to always make offerings to her." But in spite of that, I've always been more involved with protectors like Shenpa. Somehow, I never include her in my practice. It's just recently that things have been pointing out that she is the real one I should be concerned with, so I have been taking more interest in doing her practice. She is my birth goddess. I was born in Kongbo, and she became my protectress.

So this practice is optional. If you do do that practice, she will create more favorable circumstances for me to be able to come and help you all more fully. Also, she will create a situation where you will find time to practice as well.

You have this practice, it starts with Kay Sha Shu Pa Ja Jung Pa Zon Zhu Sho Shu Kay Su Yidam ___ Tum Mo Che. I will give you all the oral transmissions straight away, so you'll have that.

Normally, when you are doing a tsog puja or a dharmapala practice as a group, it is good to do this practice of Kongsen Denma. It's not something you have to do every day. It is good to do it collectively as a group. As I said, in my own experience, she has really come and helped me many times.

Normally, as far as your daily practice goes, if you have a dharmapala initiation it is good to do the practice. Why? Because it opens your confidence. Also, your confidence is opened when you are able to relate to the sambhogakaya wisdom body of these deities. These dharmapalas are the protectors of the dharmakaya buddhas that are in the active field - not in the depth of meditation.

Protectors are willing to show their divine form to you, and will show it to you in a way that you can relate to, but they remain behind because we are not subtle enough, and we don't realize it, and we don't evoke them enough. But somehow, when the time of need arises, these protectors and protectresses will come and help.

In the Nyingma lineage, and in the whole buddhadharma, one of the most complex things to explain is the dharmapalas. The reason for this is because we must be spoken to on our individual levels of realization; otherwise, it becomes a gross fabrication of a very, very subtle complex. The explanation can also be very difficult and terrifying, because the dharmapalas arise from the vapors of our blood. There are so many levels of protectors: there are local palas, dharmapalas, wisdom protectors, there is a whole heirarchy of protectors. It is like a comprehensive government of dharmapalas.

If you understand the dharmapala practice, you understand the working mind of the Buddhas. The dharmapalas are the main working force of all the Buddhas, because they communicate the process of our mind. If there is an enemy, what is the enemy? How should we view the enemy? If there is something harming us, how do we defeat it?

It is important to do the dharmapala practice at the beginning and end of each empowerment or wang, and if you are doing a retreat, you must also begin and end with a dharmapala practice. There is no time that you can ever exclude these wisdom beings.

The dharmapala initiation is called "Tsogmay Tsogthig" which means "empowerment giving you the life force of the protectors." Once you have received the initiation, you must do the practice every day or they will harm you. It's a commitment, a very serious contract. This empowerment will explain exactly what the protectors are, and how they dwell in our system and energize you.

A general dharmapala practice you can do as a group, even if you haven't had the initiation, is the Tsomig Tsogthig. It's a special transmission which I don't think is being given, unless you are a tulku or really committed to spending the rest of your life in practice. It is a very difficult and risky transmission to give, and it has a very heavy samaya.

So those are the three dharmapala practices I recommend: Shenpa, the three deities, and Kongsen Denma. After that, if there are other protectors you wish to include, then include them, but these three are the root protectors in your practice.

The "Dam Chen Chi Tor" practice contains the entire magnitude of the protectors, and is a complete protector prayer for all lineages. The Dam Chen Chi Tor is so complete that once you have finished it, you have fulfilled the samaya to all the lineages. All protectors for all practices come from there. Once you have done this, you can go to the other protector prayers to pay special respect to individual protectors.

Whenever you pour a liquid as an offering to a protector, you must wear a scarf over your mouth so you don't breathe into the protectors. The thing about the dharmapalas is that they are very disciplined wisdom Buddhas. They won't accept any of your faults at all. They will discipline you. If, for example, you breathe into what you are pouring, they will slap you back, and in the same way, if your practice is done correctly and well, you will have a positive reaction back, straight away.

It is good to offer red wine to the dharmapalas, but the best offering is whiskey. Whiskey is expensive, but when you make an offering to the dharmapalas, and to the wisdom Buddhas, you don't want to be cheap, you should want to offer something good. If you cannot afford whiskey, drop down to wine, and if you cannot afford wine, then offer tea. If you cannot afford tea, what can I say?

Along with the liquid that you offer in the dharmapala cup, you should also offer beef heart. The dharmapala offering is a symbol of activating the heart core. The chanting and beating of the drum that we do in the dharmapala practice vibrates the Buddha's heart. From that heart vibration, our heart vibrates. So they vibrate together, which produces the energy that produces the different phenomena. Within the beef heart, all essences are together. If you can' t afford heart , offer a small piece of meat. If you can't afford heart or meat, then offer a biscuit, or a little rice.

Basically, the offering should be whiskey, heart, the five kinds of meat, and at last one grain of rice. If you are doing a long practice, cut many pieces of meat, and continue to add heart and whiskey as if to say, "Please have, please have."

Now it is not just whiskey and meat, but it is nectar we are offering. This offering is a symbol of our heart being opened to the dharmapala and saying, "Have this." If you have an enemy, the offering symbolizes their heart, as if you were saying, "Please subjugate my enemy." When you say "subjugate" you don't mean kill. Subjugate means you want them to see the wisdom of not harming you. It is a means to bring wisdom to that person.

Many times, if someone seeks to harm you, and you are doing dharmapala practice, that person will suddenly change their mind and decide not to hurt you. Why? Because the dharmapala changes their mind about the benefits of harming you.

Normally, when we make our offering, the power of the five meats and the five nectars increases the offering in an infinite way, like space, but since we don't have the meditative power to increase it the way it should be increased, if we add a little dudtsi or amrita inside the bottle of whiskey, because the dudtsi has been blessed by the power of meditation, the whiskey will have the strength of meditation. The amrita has the power to make your dharmapala practice successful.

You must have either the power of the practice of relying on your yidam, your meditation, or the substance. The dudtsi contains all three powers, and alone can fulfill all three requirements. It is really powerful. I do that, by the way. You can feel the difference when you add dudtsi to the whiskey. The vibration in the room changes straight away. The protectors come.

In the Nyingma lineage, the key to making dudtsi is knowing how to prepare the nectars. Dudtsi contains five gems, five meats, five nectars, and the relics of all the Buddhas and tertons. It also contains the combination of all the earth that Rinpoche has collected from different areas.

When we make dudtsi, we combine relic upon relic, and concentrate it with the 21-day practice of day and night. The practice goes on for 21 days and nights, without interruption. It is an awesome, overwhelming process. The mantra must continue 24 hours a day. Herbs are mixed with the dudtsi, and all of these ingredients, these king medicines, are mixed together. Then the mixture is sealed all around. Bell and dorje are placed in different quarters to symbolize the blessing. The medicine that is prepared must be kept in a mandala, so a whole mandala must be prepared. It must be constantly attended to, with offering lamps and light. And with the practice of Dorje Sempa, Vajrsattva, Phurba, or Avalokitesvara, the lama empowers the medicine with his mind, again and again.

It is an extremely complex process to prepare dudtsi. Throughout the practice tsog is offered. When His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche prepared it, in the end, as a symbolic thing, people would see rainbows coming out of the dudtsi. Rainbows would cross each other in the air in the room where he worked, and other things like that. Even with an ordinary lama, due to the strength of the blessings, the skull cup will boil over and radiate light on the ceiling. There are always miraculous signs when dudtsi is being prepared. Always.

If you are sick, or have samaya contamination or anything like that, if you eat a little dudtsi it will purify your channels. Dudtsi is really to purify channels. If you add a little to the whiskey, it will make up for whatever you lack in reliance on yidam, meditation, or the power of the substance.

When you practice alone, place the protector offering on your table, not the altar, so you can keep feeding it . Make the offering very carefully, and place a bumpa or water bowl here with a little saffron in it, and keep purifying the protector offering with the water as well. Also, you can turn the incense around the offering.

You must be very diligent, very conscientious of what you are doing. It is very bad if any dirt gets into the offering. The offering receptacle must be washed thoroughly, and make sure your hands are washed too. If you sit down and touch the floor after washing your hands, you might think your hands are washed, but they aren't. Be careful.

The best way of disposing of a protector offering is in the river or ocean. It is also good to keep it in a high place where birds can eat it, like on a post, or in a tree, or put it on clean ground, blocked by a fence or stone, away from where you walk. If you are in retreat, you can collect it in a plastic garbage bag.

Don't give the remains to domesticated dogs, cats, or other animals that comprise your extended family. If they are other people's animals, and strays, it's not great but it is okay. It is okay for wild animals to consume the offerings. It is good to make the offering every day, especially toward the evening.

Q. I don't believe in the dharmapalas. Everything else about dharma makes sense, but dharmapalas don't make sense to me.

A. Everybody has a problem with the dharmapalas. They ask, "Who are they? I don't believe in them." And, my dear, I must say two things to you: First, just because you don't visually see or understand something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Remember this one. Second, what you don't see is your limitation, not an expansion of your awareness.

The reason it is so hard to relate to the teaching of the dharmapalas is because this teaching is so very, very sophisticated. When you go through all the elaboration of the practice, through all the blood, guts, pus and everything spilling out, and you look at the various vapors that rise up, then you begin to understand. Understanding the dharmapala is really understanding how your blood and your heart beat relate to your practice. We say your heart is the drum of the dharmapala. The pumping of the blood is the offering to the protectors, and the beating of the heart is their drum.

You must be brought up in the context of being with them, or having seen them or the local protectors. If you can't see the local protectors, how can you hope to see the dharmapalas? If you can't see your ancestors who have died on this land, how can you hope to see a local protector, let alone a dharmapala? The level of energy is very high, very subtle. Once your energy is very subtle, then you want to name the subtleness of the protectors. This is what you want to come to.

For example, once, in His Holiness' temple, a man named Pedma Longdu used to beat the dharmapala drum every evening and make offerings. He had made a commitment to His Holiness to perform this offering ritual, and it was his routine. One night he got drunk and didn't make the offering. He went to sleep. In the middle of the night my mother woke up, maybe around 2:00 a.m., when the dharmapala drum began beating on its own. She woke up my father and asked him, "Did you ask for a special extension of the practice? What is going on?" Rinpoche just got up and smiled, and said, "It doesn't matter. No, it doesn't matter."

The drum beat the whole night, and all the people surrounding the temple could not sleep. The dharmapala had become very violent, hitting the drum, because the offering had not been put there.

The next morning Rinpoche called Pema Longdu, who is now the head lama of the Buddha Monastery in Kaleekoh, and asked him, "Why didn't you do the dharmapala practice last night?" The lama became arrogant and said, "If I miss one day's practice, are they going to get so hungry?"

The next day Pema Longdu was hit by a fever, becoming violently ill and almost losing his life. This was because he talked about the protectors as if they were hungry for an offering, and were so attached to that offering that they couldn't go even one day without it. Right after he said that his blood started warming up. He couldn't sleep all night, and his heart kept on beating, beating, beating. The next morning, he started vomiting blood. So Rinpoche told him to go straight away into the temple and make prostrations to the protectors, or they would take his life.

The protectors can take your life force. It really is in their hands. Why? The life force we are talking about in the Chi Med Tsog Thig is the protector. There is nothing other than that. It wasn't that the dharmapalas missed the offering. They just showed him that he had lost his discipline in the training of his mind. That is why the dharmapala showed its hand. It can be a very costly affair.

Let me tell you another story about the dharmapalas. The reason my father, Dudjom Rinpoche, was never angry towards any particular person is because once he had a bad experience, and he vowed never to get angry again. I'll explain what happened, but we should not talk about it to anyone.

When Rinpoche was young, he had some financial difficulties, as all of us do have at one time or another. Rinpoche was sponsoring many things, and his finances weren't so good. So he borrowed quite a large sum from these three brothers, because Rinpoche was always borrowing money. He was going to pay it back, but in Tibet it is horrible to borrow money because the interest is so high. You cannot believe it. After one or two years, if you can't repay a loan, your interest is four or five times the amount you borrowed.

Rinpoche couldn't pay the loan back the first year. He had started building a monastery and just couldn't pay it. So in the second or third year one of the brothers became very angry. Rinpoche said, "Please wait. I think my situation will soon be a little bit better." Rinpoche was already making payments, but he had borrowed quite a large amount of money.

One day Rinpoche was teaching, and in those days lamas would teach very casually, sitting in front of the house in the garden letting people come and go as they wanted, when all of a sudden this brother turns up and says, "Give me the money right now." Rinpoche said, "I don't have it." So the brother said, "Then what you need is a whack," and he grabbed Rinpoche by the throat and dragged him out.

Now all of his disciples were warriors, because as you know Tibetans are fighters, so his disciples were dragging their swords out, and Rinpoche was screaming, "Don't touch him, don't touch him." Everyone there had a knife and gun and were prepared to kill this brother straight away, but Rinpoche stopped them. So the angry brother kicked him two or three times, and Rinpcohe felt really bad, but he said, "He's right. It is his money that I haven't been able to give him. It is true."

Early one morning, before the dawn light, Rinpoche was doing his practice around 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. In the middle of his practice, someone came in and put something on the table in front of him, and made a big noise in the dark.

So Rinpoche goes looking for a torch -- batteries were brought from Lhasa, and from there they came from China, so who could afford them? -- finds it, and lighting it he finds a fresh head cut off, with the brains intact. He immediately realizes that it is the head of the brother who grabbed him by the neck. The protector could not bear to see him humiliated, so he lopped that person's head off and brought it to Rinpoche.

From that time on Rinpoche swore never to feel any emotion, or show any emotion. He had been thinking, "Why did that man treat me so badly?" He deserved it, but not in this way. Two days later, another brother went completely crazy and stabbed himself. Soon afterward, the third brother was riding his horse and fell. Once a protector gets angry, he won't stop until he cuts the entire family line. You might ask, "What logic is there in hurting family members?", but I'm trying to tell you it goes beyond logic.

So immediately, Rinpoche had to stop this, because it was spreading to the other family members. So he told the parents and relatives to come to the monastery and do prostrations in the temple and ask for forgiveness. Rinpoche accepted their petitions for forgiveness, then it was cut. It didn't get the father and mother, but next it would have been the uncles.

The wisdom mind of the dharmapalas is such that when people are cut, they are also liberated. Don't forget this. It is not that they are suffering. The dharmapalas have the right to take the life force away. The life force we are talking about is a vitality which is in the grasp of the dharmapalas.

The truth is contained in this awareness. It is very difficult to understand at this moment, but the more you do dharmapala practice, the more you will be able to see many things you did not see before.

Rinpoche felt very bad that he showed a little emotion, because he felt that it was that emotion which transformed into the activity of the dharmapalas. It doesn't make sense to say the dharmapalas felt anger, because they are the wisdom deities, and are beyond anger. But when you violate a holy body, the dharmapala is sworn to protect that, so they will come into action.

Regarding the lamas who are being killed in Tibet, as I said, the dharmapalas are sworn to protect the body of divine truth --not outside, but inside. Physically speaking, these lamas still have to go through the same experiences of birth, old age, sickness and death, just like anyone else. They have chosen to go through these challenges, which is why they are called bodhisattva. Bodhisattva means accepting the challenge to come back into samsara and go through the same poisons and training, again and again. But innerly they will perceive their sickness differently. They will stay in the dharmakaya perception, and when they die, they will dissolve into light. It is only because our perception is impure that we see them suffering in an outer way. That is the difference.

Now that you have been given the explanation of the dharmapalas, if you don't have respect for that explanation, then you are in serious trouble. Then you won't practice as you should. If you haven't had enough explanation, and you do the practice a little wrong, that is a little okay, but once you've had the explanation, and you do it any other way, then you break your commitment. What is more, there is the difficult matter of all the levels of the protectors, arising from intangibility, from that which is unseen. It is very complex.

I've seen thousands of examples of what the protectors can do. When you do their practices, you will find your confidence. As you move toward realization, the thing you will lack is the protectors. That is when the protectors arise.

What we have not understood so far is the strength of the blood, the strength of the heart, and the strength of the flesh. This means we haven't really understood the dharmapalas at all. If you practice consistently, then the dharmapalas have to reveal themselves to you. Their qualities will reveal in the depth of you -- in the breath, in the blood vapor, in the nerve vapor -- and you will be able to see them for the first time. Then you will begin to understand what is called "the unhindered action of the Buddhas."

Right now, the closest you will come to seeing the perfect enlightened mind of the Buddhas is from the point of view of the protectors. It is very complex. You need to do a one month retreat of the dharmapala before you can realize, through the beat of the drum, just whose heart it is that is beating. The drum beat is not your heartbeat, it is the heartbeat of the dharmapalas. And when you begin to understand that, fear begins to rise, because without beating the drum, the drum is still beating. Then more fear will arise. That is how you go about looking for the protectors. If you see the protectors, you might just faint. Sometimes, the life force will just run away.

When you pray for protection, you probably think you are praying to be protected from something, but though it is isn't written, what you are really praying for is the protection of the dharmapalas. The dharmapala is the manifestation of the wisdom activity of the Buddhas. Suppose you are doing practice and someone wants to kill you, but you are saved. Who saved you? It was the dharmapalas. The bridge between the intellect and the wisdom mind is the dharmapalas.

The dharmapalas are implicit in all dharma practices. Only through the dharmapalas do you explicitly bring up the full range and magnitude of the activity of the Buddhas. You practice with wishful thought, but when you do dharmapala practice, that wishful thought translates into action.

Every time something happens to you that brings a change or realization in your life, or gives you strength to live again, that is the activity of the dharmapalas. It is not just happening by accident; it is the movement of the dharmapala. The heartbeat is the heartbeat of the dharmapala.

For example, sometimes they manifest as a person, blocking you from going a certain way, and later on you see that someone going that way was hit by a car, or they go into another person's mind and block you so you will be safe, or physically manifest so that you are saved. These are all common activities of the dharmapala. They push you from this to that until you make the auspicious connection. It just depends on how you understand it.

Non-physical things which happen to you, which are good for you, are also the dharmapala. If you think the person or situation that was good for you, and continue to practice, someday the dharmapala will come and say, "Yes, I did that for you. I gave you that situation a long time ago." That is the way it is.

The dharmapalas can be violent, but they can be peaceful too. They can be a butterfly, they can be warmth, they can be anything. They don't have to be just one particular form. The activity aspect is dharmapala.

To tell the truth, even for myself:, the complexity of the dharmapalas is such that sometimes I say to myself, "What am I doing?" When you practice, you will understand, but when you don't, then it is difficult. It doesn't matter whether you've seen them or not, if you continue to do your protector practices, different situations will arise from that.

Somehow, what I always see is the wrathful. When I was small I couldn't sleep. When I grew up I was constantly seeing the movement of the dharmapala. I remember my father saying, "Ah, these are things practitioners wish to see but can't. These are your protectors."

At that time I couldn't understand what these protectors were, though in my depth I could. They had three eyes, six eyes, and I couldn't relate to them. And the words they spoke weren't words a small kid could understand like, "I love you." Instead they would say, "Give me your heart. I want to eat you," or something like that. Those were their exact words, and I was only five or six years old. I couldn't sleep. I would see their translucent bodies, and they would come and grab me.

In the daytime, I couldn't play either. My eldest sister would never play with me because I would see these things, and when I would point them out to her, she would see the same things. And my servants, the young men who were looking after me, none of them would take responsibility for me at night. That is how bad it was.

In the daytime, I would be playing a game like hide and seek, and sometimes I would be running and all of a sudden I would fall into a gigantic lap. When I would look up I would see this horrible face, and then I'd faint. Most of my childhood was spent in either a fainting or unconscious state. I've always been like that. I had a difficult life as a kid.

My mother and father would sleep together and put me in the middle between them, and as soon as they fell asleep, someone would shake me. I'm not joking. The protector would shake me so I would wake up, and then I would see on the ceiling this deity with three heads, tongue rolled up, guts hanging out, one hand holding a knife, saying, "Come, come, I want to just cut your neck."

It helped that Rinpoche told me it was good that I had these protectors, and that they were the wisdom deities. As a child I could relate to something nice, but seeing something like that just scared the hell out of me. I couldn't understand why they would do that, why they would frighten me. And later in my life, I didn't understand why they didn't have the wisdom to know I was just a child.

Rinpoche would be doing a tsog, and I would look inside the tsog offering and see a whole host of non-existent people. Sometimes they would bring dead people to Rinpoche for his blessing. I would see that person walk in, sit down and observe. I saw many things that terrified me.

My mother would fight with my father, saying, "If this continues a long time, you will have no son left." It was true. Anything that moved, I was frightened. She wanted him to seal off my mind so I wouldn't see these visions. Rinpoche had a way of sealing this vision off, totally. My father said no, we must leave it as it is, that it was really beneficial for me. I couldn't understand how it was beneficial. But later, after a big fight with my mother, he sealed it.

Rinpoche called me in to him and said, "It is very unfortunate what I am going to do, but I am going to seal your vision completely." I was maybe seven or eight years old. There was an altar set up with some nectar on it. He told me to put it on my eyes. So I put it on my eyes and forehead, and he said, "From today on, I've sealed this one." Truly speaking, after that I never saw them again. I could feel them move for another year, but the vision aspect was gone. Now I think it was a great mistake.

My mother should have listened to Rinpoche, because he was talking from his wisdom mind. I'm sure I wouldn't have died, but I was so happy when my mother requested that. Believe me, my servants couldn't bear to be with me. At night they wouldn't go out with me, because just like with my sister, if I pointed the dharmapalas out, they would see them too.

I would be sitting in a room, and the door curtains would start moving, and something would catch my eye and I would see this gigantic finger saying, "Come, come. " I wouldn't want to look at it, so I'd tell my sister, "there, there," and she would see the same gigantic finger saying, "Come, come," and then she'd start screaming. It is no wonder I had no one to play with. If it had been a dream, I would have understood it as a dream, but it wasn't a dream. I really saw it. I couldn't hide in any corner.

The only time I felt secure that nothing was going to come was when I would sit right next to my father or mother when they were doing things. Even then, when I looked around, I would see things, but they wouldn't frighten me because my mother or father was there.

Rinpoche told me that later on my vision would reopen on its own, but I think it was good for my health that he sealed it off; otherwise, I don't know what would have happened to me. It was a terrible part of my life.

So when you ask about the dharmapala, I've had the same kinds of questions, like why would they scare the hell out of me? If they had just showed themselves to me once, I would have said, " I've had an experience," but showing me again and again, daytime, evening, nighttime, whenever I played they were running after me, attacking me. And their words were not sweet or gentle, they were always, "I want to chop you," or "I want to eat your heart." The only gentle thing I've seen is Kongsen Denma, and she's important to me. She always appears in the most beautiful form.

One day I was playing outside in the field and suddenly this beautiful lady came and said, "I'll take you to the main garden in Lhasa." I said, "Yes, I want to go." So I just held her hand and went. I saw everything in the lingka. I'd never been to the lingka before. I was lost for seven hours.

My mother was worried , and she went to my father and he said, "No, no. There is nothing wrong with him. He'll come back home. It looks alright." During the seven hours I was lost, my memory was that I went to this lingka and had a nice time. I watched all the fish in the water. Then, all of a sudden, I was back in front of the gate, and a servant came and grabbed me and dragged me in, because all the servants were out looking for me. I didn't know what had happened. I didn't realize I had been gone for seven hours. It had seemed just a few minutes to me. The beautiful lady had said, "Go back. I'll come and visit you again."

My mother asked me what happened, and where had I been, and who took me, so I told her. The lingka is a 1/2- day's horse ride from my house. Rinpoche knew nothing was wrong. He could see everything was intact, that I hadn't been taken by a demon or a spirit. Rinpoche said most probably it must have been one of his protectors.

So she was the only elegant lady with all the ornaments saying, "come" with gentle words. The rest I've seen were all (he makes a grimace). That's what I mean when I say dharmapalas.

(The two stories about laying down on the road and letting the Chinese Trucks roll over him, and Falling in the Well were not translated.)
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Re: The Protectors (Dharmapalas), by H.E. Shenphen Rinpoche

Postby admin » Fri Feb 03, 2023 5:39 am

Part 1 of 3

The Miraculous Activity Sadhana of Vajrakilaya, the Razor Which Destroys at a Touch
by His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche, Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje

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Table of Contents:

• Opening Prayers
o The Prayer to Supplication to Dudjom Lingpa
o The Prayer of Supplication to Dudjom Rinpoche, Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje
o The Prayer That Swiftly Accomplishes All Wishes
o Prayer to Guru Rinpoche to Clear Obstacles on the Path
o Long Life Prayer for All Lamas
o Prayer for the Nyingmapa Lineage and the Tradition
o Yeshe Tsogyal’s Prayer to Guru Rinpoche as He Left Tibet
o The Aspiration of the Vajradhatu Mandala by Guru Rinpoche
o The Aspirations Prayer to Journey to the Realm of the Copper Colored Mountain: A Chariot of Happiness and Good Fortune
o The Verses of Prayer to the Eight Noble Auspicious Ones
• The Preliminary Practice of the New Treasure of Dudjom
• The Prayer to the Legendary Incarnations, Called “Crystal Pearls”
• The Daily Practice of Vajrakilaya
• Main Practice: The Miraculous Activity Sadhana of Vajrakilaya, the Razor Which Destroys at a Touch
o Lineage Prayer
o First Section
 Preparation
 Wheel of Protection
 Kar Tor
 Gek Tor
 Confession
 Descent of Blessings
 Blessing the Offering Materials
o Second Section
 The Main Practice
 Visualization of the Commitment Mandala
 Invitation of the Wisdom Beings
 Requesting the Commitment Being and the Wisdom Being to Reside Inseparable
 Homage
 Offerings: Conventional Offering
 Special Offering: Medicine
 Torma Offering
 Rakta Offering
 Offering of the Three Poisons
 Offering of the Liberation of Union
 The Praises
 The Recitation
 Exhortation
 Visualization
 The Recitation of Approach (nyen pa)
 The Recitation of Accomplishment (drup pa)
 The Activity Recitation (leg gyur)
 The Recitation of the Close Approach of the Wrathful Mantra (ngen ngak nye war nyen pa
 Long-Life Recitation
 Vowels and Consonants, etc.
 To Close the Session
o Third Section: Stages of Conclusion
 The Tsok Offering
 Invitation of the Tsok Assembly
 Offering the First Portion of Tsok
 Intermediate Offering of Confession
 Last Offering of Slaying
 Kangwa
 Tsok Offering Verse
 Heruka Prayer
 Giving the Remains
 Recalling the Contract
 Offering to the Tenma Goddesses
 The Dance of Suppression
 Requesting the Spiritual Attainments
 Heruka Confession
 Stabilizing the Presence
 Clarification of Eternalism and Nihilism
 Prayer to Dedicate the Merit
 Prayer of Good Fortune
o Lower Activity (Medlei)
 Preparation
 Warding Off Harm
 Slaying
 Exhorting the Rigdzins
 Exhorting the Principal Deities
 Exhorting the Oath-Bound Ones
 Offering the Golden Drink
 Requesting a Fair Witness
 Creating the Objects of Visualization
 Summoning the Consciousness
 Dispatching the Messengers
 Depriving Them of Their Defenses
 Casting Them Into the Effigy
 Binding Them Into Suppression
 Rendering Them Mad
 Transfixing Them with the Spike
 Crushing Them To Dust
 Feeding Them to the Mouths of the Deities
 Calling Upon the Sacred Bonds
 Enjoining the Enlightened Activity that Averts Negativity
 The Clapping of Hands
 Offering Torma as Power Substance
 Opening the Door
 Recalling the Contract
 Offering the Golden Drink (2)
o Vajrakilaya Longevity Sadhana
o Summoning Longevity
o The Abbreviated Offering Prayer to the Phurba Protectors
• The Protectors
o The Combined Essence of a Daily Torma Offering to the Three Roots and the Oath Bound Protectors (Damchen Chitor)
o A Concise Torma Offering to the Protectress of the Secret Mantra, Mamo Ngag Sun Ma -- Ekadzati
o A Brief Supplication Offering to the Three Protectors: Ekadzati, Rahula and Dorje Legpa (Maza Dor Sum)
o The Prayer to Activate the Miraculous Activity of Marpo Lha Sum Called: "The Indignant Laugh of Blazing Powerful Wrath" (Marpo Lha Sum)
o The Supplication to Invoke Shenpa Extracted From the Main Terma
o Nodchin Shenpa Protector Prayer
o The Abbreviated Offering Prayer to the Phurba Protectors
• The Inexpressible Absolute Confession
• From the Stainless Secret of Vajrasattva: The Doctrine of the King of Purification, the Essence of Confession

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OPENING PRAYERS

Seven-Line Prayer to Guru Rinpoche

Hung. In the northwest country of Orgyen
Born in the pollen heart of the lotus,
Possessing astonishingly supreme spiritual attainments,
You are well known as Pedma Jungney (the Lotus Born),
Surrounded by a retinue of many dakinis,
Following you, I practice.
Please come forth to bestow blessings.
GURU PEDMA SIDDHI HUNG.

The Prayer to Supplication to Dudjom Lingpa

The essential nature of the undeceiving three precious jewels,
The supreme expression of the three kayas of the ocean-like buddhas,
The great perfection dharma king of the three realms:
To the feet of Dudjom Lingpa, I pray.
In the play of the pure equality of samsara and nirvana,
May buddhahood be obtained by actualizing relation and liberation.

The Prayer of Supplication to Dudjom Rinpoche, Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje

In the past, you were the Vidyadhara Nuden Dorje Tsal.
In the future, you will be the Buddha Mopa Thayei.
Now you are Padmasambhava’s regent, the actual presence of Dro Ben Lotsawa.
To Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje, I pray.

This was written by myself upon the request of the faithful. SARWA MANGALAM

In the Ogmin Dharmadhatu Palace,
The actual nature of all the Buddhas of the Three Times
Reveals the direct perception of the Dharmakaya Self-Mind.
To the feet of the Root Lama, I pray.

The Prayer That Swiftly Accomplishes All Wishes

EH MA HO. How Astonishing! In the center of the lake, on the pollen heart of a lotus,
Is the spontaneously accomplished primordial wisdom deity of the five embodiments,
Great self-born Padmasambhava and consort,
Surrounded by dakinis like massive heaps of clouds; to you I pray.
Grant blessings that my wishes may be swiftly accomplished.
Due to the strength of fully-ripening negative karmic behaviors,
All illness, negative forces, obstacles, war, strife, and famine develop.
By fervently remembering your face, they are exhausted.
Before you, from my heart I implore you, Lord Orgyen:
Grant blessings that my wishes may be swiftly accomplished.
Liberating the mind through the practice of faith, morality, (and) generosity,
With modesty and shame, (through) listening (to dharma)
And being fully endowed with wisdom, these are the seven wealths.
By the strength of these (qualities) rising in the minds of all sentient beings,
They will breathe the treasure of bliss and happiness in this world.
Grant blessings that my wishes may be swiftly accomplished.
All illness, and the suffering of undesirable circumstances,
The rising up of demonic forces, and the punishment of the kind (of demonic spirits),
Fire, water, wild animals, treacherous passageways, and great fears –
During all such temporary occasions, and when the end of this life is reached,
There is no other source of refu8ge or hope (than you).
Hold me fast with your compassion, Lord Orgyen.
Grant blessings that my wishes may be swiftly accomplished.

(Optional Prayer)

I pray to you, Orgyen Rinpoche,
Without allowing conflicting circumstances and obstacles to arise,
Accomplish all conducive circumstances and wishes, and
Bestow the supreme and common spiritual attainments.
From my heart I pray to you, Lord Orgyen.
Hold me fast with your hook of merciful compassion, Lotus-born One.
In this and future lifetimes, grant blessings that all excellent and meaningful desires
May be accomplished in accordance with the dharma!
OM AH HUNG BENZAR GURU PEDMA SIDDHI HUNG

Prayer to Guru Rinpoche to Clear Obstacles on the Path

Precious teacher, the embodiment of all buddhas of the three times,
Great bliss, the lord of all accomplishments,
Wrathful power, the one who dispels all hindrances and subdues demons –
I pray, bestow your blessings.
Please remove the outer, inner, and secret obstacles
And grant the blessing to accomplish wishes spontaneously.

Long Life Prayer for All Lamas

I pray for the excellent health of the teacher,
I pray for supreme long life as well.
I pray for the ever-increasing expansion of miraculous activity.
Grant blessings that I may never be separate from the lama!

Prayer for the Nyingmapa Lineage and the Tradition

May the great tradition of Khenpo Shantarakshita, Lobpon Padmasambhava, and the dharma king Trisong Detsun,
Increase and spread throughout the three realm world.
May the appearance of the Three Jewels, and the mindstreams of beings,
Remain inseparable, and bring sublime well being throughout the three times.

By Jnana.

Yeshe Tsogyal’s Prayer to Guru Rinpoche as He Left Tibet

NAMO GURU

When the master Padmasambhava was leaving for the land of rakshas at the summit of Mang Yul pass, Yeshe Tsogyal, having done many prostrations and circumambulations, bowed down to his feet and made this prayer.

By the blessing of the Maha Guru,
Through all of my lifetimes,
In the palace of the pure land,
May I become inseparable with the lama.
By my stable faith
May I please him by perfect service.
May I be able to receive his blessing and the nectar of his instructions,
The essence of his profound realization.
By the blessing of his body, speech, and mind,
May my three doors, (body, speech and mind) ripen, and
Through the two profound stages of generation and completion,
May I obtain power and spiritual accomplishments.
May all the demons of incorrect thinking and their assemblies,
As well as illness, malevolent spirits, and obstacles, be pacified, and
May (my) endowments and retinues increase
So that all my thoughts are wish-fulfillingly accomplished.
In cemeteries, high in the snow mountains, and other secluded places,
In prosperous and favorable places,
May I be able to constantly practice
The nectar of Buddha mind, the profound Samadhi.
By the results of practicing,
May I be able to accomplish the four supreme activities.
May all the guardians come under my control
And thus enable me to guard the Buddha’s teachings.
May the meaning of the Buddha’s teachings
Arise spontaneously within my mind.
May I possess supreme knowledge
And thus be able to attain the highest realization.
Through the interdependence of bodhicitta
May I be able to control all beings,
And by the power of wish-fulfilling, unobstructed bodhicitta,
May all the connections I make be purposeful.
May the Buddha’s teaching increase
And may its followers flourish in the teaching.
May all beings achieve happiness
And may all the Buddha realms be perfect.
Through my body, speech and mind,
According to the needs of beings to be tamed,
May there appear measureless nirmanakaya embodiments
In whatever manifestation is the most beneficial.
In short, may all of samsara and nirvana
Become inseparable with the guru.
May I immediately attain buddhahood,
The state of the three kayas, indistinguishable,
May the beings pray to me.
May the guru bless me.
May the yidam grant me siddhi.
May the dakinis give me prophecy,
May the dharma protectors removemy obstacles.
May the Buddha’s teaching ever increase.
May all beings be happy.
May I practice dharma day and night.
May I spontaneously fulfill the two aims (of self and others).
By this perfect virtue
May I be able to root out suffering from samsara.
May I never fall into the samsaric ocean again.
May I be able to reveal the three kayas.
The great secret treasury of all buddhas,
The supreme teaching of Vajrayana –
May it spread everywhere
Like the sun rising into the sky.
Through this and other virtuous deeds which I will accumulate,
May the qualities and causes which fulfill the wishes of the spiritual teachers arise.
May I have the strength to develop and spread the precious teaching of Buddha.
May my knowledge, compassion and ability reach the ultimate state and may I become a Buddha.
May I be able to carry all the beings who are suffering in the six realms across the ocean of samsara, so they may attain buddhahood immediately.

I, Pema Lingpa, found this prayer from the lion-faced rock of Lho-Drag Mendo.

Translated by Bhakha Tulku, Pema Tenzin, at Kunzang Palyul Choling, Poolesville, Maryland in February, 1990.

The Aspiration of the Vajradhatu Mandala by Guru Rinpoche

NAMO GURU

On the tenth day of the monkey month in the monkey year, Orgyen Rinpoche uttered this aspiration on the occasion of revealing the Vajradhatu mandala in the turquoise covered middle chamber of Samye. Thereafter, the king and the disciples made it their daily practice. All future generations should wholeheartedly take it up as their practice, as well.

Victorious ones and your sons in the ten directions and four times,
Assemblies of gurus, yidams, dakinis, and dharma protectors,
Please come here, all of you, numerous as dust motes in the world,
And be seated on the lotus and moon seat in the sky before me.
With respectful body, speech, and mind I bow down
And present to you outer, inner, secret, and suchness offerings.
In the presence of you sugatas, the supreme objects of worship,
I feel shame for the gatherings of my past evil actions
And confess regretfully my present non-virtues.
In order to turn away from them in the future, I shall restrain myself.
I rejoice in all gatherings of merit and virtue
And ask you, victorious one, not to pass away into nirvana
But to turn the dharma wheel of the tripitaka and the unexcelled teacings.
All accumulations of virtue I dedicate to the minds of beings,
So they may reach unsurpassed liberation.
Buddhas and your sons please listen to me.
May this excellent aspiration which I have here begun
Be expressed in accordance with
The victorious Samantabhadra an dhis sons
And with the wisdom of noble Manjushri.
May all the precious masters, the splendor of the doctrine,
Reach everywhere like the sky.
May they shine on everyone like the sun and moon
And may their lives be firm like mountains.
May the precious sangha, the foundation of the doctrine,
Be in harmony, keep pure vows, and be wealthy in the three trainings.
May the practitioners of Mantrayana, the essence of the doctrine,
Keep the samaya and perfect the development and completion stages.
May the ruler who supports the dharma, the patron of the doctrine,
Expand his dominion and aid the Buddhist teachings.
May the nobility and chieftains, the servants of the doctrine,
Increase their intelligence and be endowed with resourcefulness.
May all rich householders, the sponsors of the doctrine,
Have wealth and enjoyments and be free from harm.
May all free countries with faith in the doctrine
Have peace and happiness and be free from obstacles.
May I, a yogin on the path,
Have flawless amaya and fulfillment of my wishes.
May anyone connected with me through good or evil karma,
Both now and ultimately, be cherished by the victorious ones.
May all beings enter the gate of the unexcelled vehicle
And attain the vast kingdom of Samantabhadra.

Exert yourself in this aspiration during the six sessions.

SA MA YA GYA

The great treasure revealer Choggyur Lingpa, emanation of Prince Murub, revealed this treasure among a crowd of people. He took it from underneath the upper part of Piled Jewels Rock Mountain situated on the right slope of the most sacred place, Sengchen Namtrak. The silk paper, made from the robe of Vairocana with Tibetan shurma letters written by Tsogyal, was then immediately transcribed correctly by Padma Garwang Lodro Thaye. May virtuous goodness increase.

The Aspirations Prayer to Journey to the Realm of the Copper Colored Mountain: A Chariot of Happiness and Good Fortune

The purity of appearances of one’s own perceptions is the vajra realm of great bliss.
The spontaneously arisen Ogmin Dharmadhatu, an interweaving dance of illusory emanations, is
The most perfected among the infinite pure lands of all the buddhas.
May I be born in the realm of the Glorious Copper Colored Mountain.
Atop a beautiful mountain of ruby
Is the jewel dome and levels of the celestial palace,
Wonderfully perfect in design and beauty.
May I be born in the realm of the Glorious Copper Colored Mountain.
Surrounding are lush lawns and sandlewood groves and
Turquoise colored marshes blooming with lotuses of various colors,
Youthfully boasting their full bloom and their beautiful pollen hearts.
May I be born in the realm of the Glorious Copper Colored Mountain.
Camphor scented springs of flowing amrita
Cascade into swirling pools – LHUNG LHUNG,
Like the flowing movements of youthful dancers.
May I be born in the realm of the Glorious Copper Colored Mountain.
From the open eyes of the tent of interlacing rainbow light rays
Fall a rain of flowers like strands of molecules
Among which the Ging Chens wind in their dance of bliss.
May I be born in the realm of the Glorious Copper Colored Mountain.
All fully perfected desirable qualities are
The cloud of beautifully adorned dakinis,
Which endlessly spread out in all directions like a canopy.
May I be born in the realm of the Glorious Copper Colored Mountain.
At the head of the assembled vidyadharas
Is the powerful conqueror Padma Jungney, the Lotus-born Guru,
Proclaiming to all directions the lion’s roar of the profound secret.
May I be born in the realm of the Glorious Copper Colored Mountain.
Having revealed that he is the essential nature of all buddhas,
With the unequalled power of primordial wisdom, knowledge and loving kindness,
He employs appropriate methods to assist the needs of countless beings.
May I be born in the realm of the Glorious Copper Colored Mountain.
A treasure of ocean-like noble qualities that has no limit –
By the mere thought of it, one is uplifted and this pure land is beheld,
A brilliantly blazing wheel of astonishing miraculous activitiy.
May I be born in the realm of the Glorious Copper Colored Mountain.
With immutable strength may I arrive, at this very moment,
In the citadel of the beautiful pureland of Kha Chod Padma Od, and
Through the liberation of accomplishing the mind’s supreme wish of benefiting self and others,
May I never be anything other than one with you, oh Guru!

This prayer was written from the heart with a mind of intense longing by the old man Yigdral Yeshe Dorje to be the cause of the noble woman Dekyong Yeshe Wangmo’s journey to the pure realm of lotus light.

Translated by Orgyen Yeshe Phuntsok at Orgyen Dorje Den, S.F., CA. 1990.

Possessor of great kindness, essence of all the buddhas,
Orgyen Rinpoche, to you I pray.
At the very moment this life is over,
Bless me that I may take rebirth in the realm of Lotus Light.

Written by Jnana.

Appearances, sound and awareness (are) experienced as the deity, mantra and the dharmakaya.
Within this vast expanse of the display of enlightened embodiments and primordial wisdom,
Through the practice of the great yoga of the profound secret
May we remain indivisible with essential essence of the one taste of enlightened mind.
In all my lifetimes may I meet with perfectly pure spiritual teachers, and
Remaining inseparable, may I utilize the glorious dharma!
Supremely perfectly all qualities and talents on the stages and paths,
May I swiftly achieve the state of the glorious Lama!

The Verses of Prayer to the Eight Noble Auspicious Ones

If these verses are repeated just once before beginning any kind of activity, whatever is wished for will be accomplished in accordance with one’s needs. Keep this in mind while reciting.

In the natural, spontaneously present, perfectly pure phenomenal existence,
To all who dwell in the auspicious realms of the ten directions,
The Buddhas, Dharma and assemblies of the Noble Sangha.
I prostrate and pray that all may be auspicious for myself and all others.
To Dronmed, Gyalpo, Tsalten, Dondrub Gong,
Japa’I Gyenpal, Geidrag Paldampa,
Kunla Gongpa, Gyacher Dragpa-chen,
Lhunpo Tarphag, Tsaldrag Pal and Ni,
Nobles Ones, known for your consideration of all sentient beings,
Noble Ones, known for your superior display of enlightened activities that grant mental satisfaction,
Merely hearing your names increases all glory and auspiciousness.
I prostrate to the eight Sugatas!
To the youthful Manjushri, the glorious Vajra-holder,
The powerful Avalkitesvara, the noble protector Maitreya,
Sayi Nyingpo, Dribpa Namparsel,
Namkhai Nyingpo, the supreme Noble Kuntuzangpo,
Utpal Dorje, Pedkar, Lushing and
Norbu Dawa, Raldri Nyima,
Holders of the excellent hand emblems of supreme noble good fortune,
I prostrate to the eight Bodhisattvas!
The supreme jeweled umbrella, the auspicious golden fish,
The wishfulfilling vase, the mind-pleasing kamala flower,
The conch of fame and glory, the fully endowed endless knot,
The eternal victory banner, the all-powerful wheel –
You who hold these eight supreme precious signs,
Offered to the Conquerors of all directions and times,
Attractive maidens of pleasure, to recall your nature increases all that is noble.
I prostrate to the eight goddesses of good fortune!
Tsangpa Chenpo, Dejung Sedmed-u,
Migton Den and Gyalpo Yulkhor Srug,
Pagkyei-po and Luwang, Mig Mi-zang,
Namto Sei, and Lha-dzei Khorlo,
Holders of the trident, short spear and vajra,
Vina, sword, stupa and banner of victory,
Who make auspiciousness and positivity grow in three realms.
I prostrate to the eight guardians of the world!
Concerning the activity that myself and others are about to begin,
By pacifying all obstructions and unwanted harm,
May the noble and meaningful increase and all wishes be accomplished.
May good fortune, happiness and prosperity be fully-endowed!!

If this prayer is recited upon awakening all that is meaningful will be accomplished. If recited before sleep, excellent dreams will be observed. If recited prior to going to another country or place, there will be victory in all directions. If recited before beginning an activity, the desired purpose will increase. If recited regularly one’s life expectancy, reputation and endowments will increase. Happiness and prosperity will be fully-endowed and one’s purpose wishfullfillingly accomplished. All negativities and obscurations will be cleansed resulting in higher rebirth and ultimate liberation. All these accomplishments are the supreme words of the Conquerors.

Thus, in the Year of the Fire Monkey, during the third month under the excellent alignment of the constellations, I, Jampal Gyeipai Dorje (Mipham Rinpoche), found this great wishfulfilling crystal in the lake of my mind.

May all be auspicious!

Glorious root teacher, precious one
Dwelling on the lotus seat on the crown of my head;
Hold me with (your) great kindness.
Bestow the accomplishments of body, speech, and mind.

The Preliminary Practice of the New Treasure of Dudjom
His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche
Jigdral Yeshe Dorje
Supreme Leader of the Nyingmapa School

A Prayer of Calling (the Lama) from Afar: a Spontaneous Song of the Original Nature

The Essence, unchanging from the beginning, innate nature free of elaboration,
Originally pure and utterly luminous, dwells as the Youthful Vase Body.
Dharmakaya Lama, Yeshe Dorje, heed me!
Please grant the blessings to attain great confidence in the View.
The Nature, an unceasing and unified configuration of luminous clarity,
Dwells as the display of the spontaneously present Five Certainties.
Sambhogakaya Lama, Dechen Dorje, heed me!
Please grant the blessings to perfect great ability in meditation.
Compassion without bias, pristine wisdom free from all limitation,
Dwells as the essence of all-pervading naked awareness-emptiness.
Nirmanakaya Lama, Drodul Lingpa, heed me!
Please grant the blessings to accomplish great progress in Action.
The original nature of one’s own awareness is unchanging and unmoving.
Whatever arises is the expression of the Dharmakaya – neither good nor bad.
Since awareness of nowness is actually the Buddha,
The completely free serene Lama is revealed in one’s innermost heart.
When this original mind is realized as the very nature of the Lama,
There is no need for whining, contrived prayers made with grasping and attachment.
By letting go in the free, natural flow of uncontrived awareness,
Not holding whatever arises, the blessings of self-liberation are obtained.
Through fabricated practice, there is no time to achieve enlightenment.
This meditation produced through mental analysis and intellect is a deceiving enemy.
Now, conceptualization falls apart with the abandon of a mandman.
Let this life be spent in a state of uninhibited, naked ease!
Whatever one does, joyful – Practictioner of the Great Perfection!
In any company, happy – Lineage Son of the Lotus Born!
Protector without rival – Great Treasure Revealing Lama!
Teachings beyond compare – Heart Essence of the Dakinis!
Having dispelled the heart’s darkness, great ignorance, in its own place,
The undiminished sun of luminous clarity shines continuously.
This good fortune is the kindness of the Lama, the only fathe.
Unrepayable kindness! Remember the Lama!

This was spoken as delirious chatter by Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje upon request of my foremost Vajra student, Trulku Jigme Choying Don Thamchad Drubpaidei. Sublime Virtue!

A Meaningful Guide to this Concise Recitation of the Preliminary Practice of the New Treasure of Dudjom

First: The Preparation: the recitation of the four reflections which reverse the mind.

NAMO. Homage! Lama, infallible constant protector, (you who) know!
The freedoms and the favorable conditions of this (human birth) are extremely difficult to obtain.
Everything born is impermanent and bound to die.
The results of virtuous and unvirtuous actions (which are causes) are inexorable.
The three realms of cyclic existence have the nature of an ocean of suffering.
Remembering this, may my mind turn towards the Dharma!

Thus, reciting as many times as possible, do the mental training.

Image

Second: The actual Preliminary Practice.

First: The going for refuge. Believe that the root teacher, himself, in the form of Guru Rinpoche, the essence of the embodiment of the refuge field of the Three Jewels, is actually sitting in front (of one) in the sky.

From now until attaining the heart of enlightenment
I take refuge in the Lama, the Three Jewels.

Thus, with prostrations, recite as much as one can.

Second: The generation of bodhicitta: Beseeching the object of refuge to bear witness.

From now until Samsara becomes empty
I shall accomplish the benefits and happiness of all sentient parent beings.

Thus, do the mental training the bodhicitta.

Third: The Accumulation of Merit – Mandala Offering: Having actually arranged the mandala configuration as a symbolic example:

The bodies, enjoyments, possessions, (and) glories of the succession of all my lifetimes
I offer to the Three Jewels in order to complete the two accumulations.

Thus, offer the mandala as many times as possible.

Fourth: The Purification of Obscurations: The Meditation of Vajrasattva. Remain in one’s ordinary state.

Above one’s head is Vajrasattva, inseparable from the Lama.
From (Vajrasattva’s) body, a nectar stream descends, purifying (my obscurations.

OM VAJRASATTVA SAMAYA MANUPALA VAJRASATTVA TENOPA TITRA DRIDHO ME BHAWA SUTO KAYO ME BHAWA SUPO KAYO ME BHAWA ANURAKTO ME BHAWA SARWA SIDDHIM ME PRA YATTSA SARWA KARMA SUTSAME TSITTAM SHRE YAM KU RU HUNG HA HA HA HA HO BHAGAWAN SARWA TATHAGATA VAJRA MAME MUNTSA VAJRI BHAWA MAHA SAMAYASATTVA AH

Thus, with the visualization of the nectar descending and purifying, recite the hundred syllables and …

OM VAJRASATTVA HUM

(Then recite the) six syllable mantra as much as one can. Then …

(Vajrasattva) melts into light and becomes mingled in one taste with one’s own perceptions.

Thus, having gathered Vajrasattva into oneself, remain in meditation.

Fifth: The Swiftly Penetrating Blessings of the Guru Yoga

Oneself (is) Vajrayogini, and in the sky in front
The root teacher manifests in the form of Padmasambhava.

The embodiment of all the buddhas of the three times, without exception,
Most excellent root teacher, I pray to you.
In this and future lives, and in the bardo, in these three, hold me with your compassion.
Bless me ceaselessly throughout the three times.

OM AH HUM VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHI HUM

Thus, recite one hundred, one thousand, etc., as much as possible.

The blessings and empowerment of body, speech, and mind are completely and perfectly obtained.

VAJRA GURU KAYA WAKA TSITTA SIDDHI HUM

Thus take the four empowerments. Then …

The teacher dissolves into light, is absorbed into oneself, and (becomes inseparable with one’s own state of being.
Behold the Emptiness-Awareness, the true face of the Lama!

Thus, absorbing the Guru into oneself, remain in meditation.

Sixth: The Transference

I pray to the protector Amitabha, the Buddha of limitless light.
Grant me the blessing to become accomplished in the profound path of the transference of consciousness.

Thus recite as many times as possible, motivate the transference.

Seventh: The charity of the body, the dedication of virtues

Now, (my) body, possessions, and (the) source of my virtue, all together
I give without clinging to all beings who have been my parents.
May I accomplish great benefits, unobstructedly, for all beings.

Thus, insistently, make prayers of aspiration and so forth.

Thus, in order to benefit those who don’t know or are unable to do the Elaborate Recitation of the Preliminary Practice According to the New Treasure, this is a mere synopsis which clarifies the essential meaning of this Concise Recitation of the Preliminary Practice by Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje.

The Prayer to the Legendary Incarnations, Called “Crystal Pearls”

In Kuntuzangpo’s space of the sphere of truth, Unchanging Bliss-Emptiness,
Are perfectly arranged clouds of immeasurable knowledge, loving-kindness, and primordial wisdom.
Knowledge Holder, like a rainfall of perfectly virtuous compassion,
To the all-pervasive lord, Supreme Lama, I supplicate.
In this pure land of light known as the fortunate kalpa,
You are the crowning tiara of the families of the main one thousand buddhas who guide all beings.
Showing the supreme body of a yogi of powerful wealth,
To Nuden Dorje Chang, I pray.
Sentient beings in this time of disputation have been abandoned by the other buddhas;
But you, the sun’s loved one, take them upon yourself.
Inseparable from the Buddha, you are the supreme wisdom being.
To Pagpa Sharipu, I pray.
By experiencing indestructible, exhaustless, ever-lasting youth,
Whatever appears is the single experience of Great Bliss.
Sealing the life of the animate and inanimate three realms,
To the Brahmin Saraha, I pray.
For the Holder of Karma, the one god, Indrabhuti,
You enforced his laws, adorned with the crystal rosary of utterance and prophecy,
Serving in order to insure benefit and happiness.
To the dharma minister Trikna Dzin, I pray.
The illusory dance of great bliss of the glorious heruka
Actualizes the unchanging, supreme primordial wisdom.
Pure awareness holder, accomplished mind of Yang Dag,
To Lopon Hung Kara, I pray.
In the presence of Padma Kara, the second Buddha,
You equaled his nature and enlightened intention and accomplished secret mantras
By merely gazing into space, hooking all the birds in the sky.
To the lotsawa Drogben Kye’u Chung, I pray.
From actually seeing and being held by Maway Sengye,
You see the nature of all things as they exist.
Great bodhisattva, skillful in activating the methods that liberate beings,
To Jowo Mriti Jnana, I pray.
Having fully perfected the ten arts and sciences,
Gloriously illuminating the Buddha’s doctrine like the daytime sun,
Great pandita of Sali Jong (Tibet),
To Rongzom Chokyi Zangpo, I pray.
From the ocean-like treasure of compassion of the powerful conqueror Padmasambhava
Comes the exalted miraculous activity like the sun
Of the doctrine of the earlier translation schook, the Kathogpa;
To the feet of Dampa Desheg, I pray.
As the vessel for Desheg Pagmo, you are the heart son.
Having transformed understanding into the expanse through the inner path,
The supreme chief heruka of the accomplished ones in Tibet,
To Palden Lingje Reypa, I pray.
The appearance of inconceivable knowledge and loving-kindness like a blazing sun,
Simultaneously opening the lotus of benefit and bliss in Tibet,
Manjushri in the form of a human saint,
To the protector of sentient beings, Chogyal Pagpa, I pray.
The supreme ultimate truth, the dharmata, unaltered,
From seeing it as it is, you liberate (beings) from the bondage of existence.
Dharma regent of the unmoving Dharmakaya,
To Drumgyi Kharnagpa, I pray.
From having accomplished the prayer to extensively exercise penance,
Subduing the coarse, difficult-to-tame brains,
Possessing great strength, drinking yogurt, holding a vajra weapon,
To the feet of the Hepa Chojung, I pray.
In the hidden land of Dharma wealth, sacred substances, etc.,
You are the great owner of hundreds of astonishing concealed treasures;
Turning the Dharma Wheel of the accomplishment of the wealth-holder of the ten bhumis,
To Dragtung Duddul Dorje, I pray.
The actual appearance of Padma Dragpo, Longsal Nying,
Holder of all the Dharma and family heritage lineages,
Illuminator of the long tradition of the essence of the definitive meaning,
To the son of the Buddha, Sodnam De’utsan, I pray.
Being held and blessed by the tutelary deity,
By the power of previous karma, holding the dakinis’ secret treasure,
Leading all who have a connection to Padma Od,
To Duddul Rolpa Tsal, I pray.
Having achieved the power of non-human self-appearance,
Revealer of the mind treasure of Kuntuzangpo from the great expanse,
Wrathful yogi of space, in actual nature of the King of Wrath,
To Garwang Dudjom Pawo, I pray.
From Ngayab Ling, the guru and consort
Send the warmth of their enlightened intention to you to breathe and obtain, (from which)
You hold all the victory banners of the Doctrine of the Great Secret;
To Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje, I pray.
In order to tame other beings according to their elements, facilities, wishes, and
In accordance with their specific abilities and fortune,
You will appear whenever to whosoever needs to be tamed.
To the transformations without limit, I pray.
In the future when the Doctrine of the Buddha is overcome by barbarians,
In Shambhala as Dorje Nonpo,
You will become the family holder, the exalted king;
To you who will destroy the heretics in war, I pray.
In the future at the end of this fortunate eon, the guide
Will be the tathagata Mopa Od Tayey.
From (your) coming, beings will be tamed by the four immeasurables!
To you who churns the depths of the realms of sentient beings, I pray.
By the force of this heart-felt prayer of unfailing faith,
For all lifetimes, you are my chakra protector.
By always relying upon you, inseparable, wish-fulfilling crown jewel,
May I always possess the fortune to experience your nectar-like speech.
By the power of your immeasurably great loving-kindness and compassion,
May I be held fast as your heart’s son.
May all the miraculous activities have the potential to increase into one-hundred directions
And awaken all beings to the inner strength of virtue!
In the palace of Ogmin Padma Od,
The enlightened intention of the guide and assembly are inseparably one taste.
From actualizing Buddhahood, may I guide sentient beings, who encompass space,
And become a great spiritual savior.

I have written this history of my past incarnations so as not to disappoint several devoted disciples who have fervently requested it again and again. This account finds its origin in the past treasures and spiritual precepts as well as the mind and speech of those previous vidyadharas (pure-awareness holders). Thus, I, Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje, have written this down so that good fortune and prosperity may prevail!

THE DAILY PRACTICE OF VAJRAKILAYA
Pudri Reg Pung
The Razor which Destroys at a Touch

Revealed by the Terton Garwang Drodul Lingpa Tsal
Dudjom Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje


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First, recite the eight branch offering.

All refuge objects in the ten directions distinctly appear as the mandala of Great Splendor Kilaya. BENZAR SA MA DZA (fills the sky before one.)

To the glorious Buddha, the Vajra Master,
In whom reside the Buddhas of the three times, to you I pay homage.
In the field of truth of the Three Supreme Jewels,
With an unwavering mind, I take refuge.
I beseech you to partake of the pure offering of
Both actual and mentally-emanated riches.
All faults and obstacles which impede the river of spiritual attainment,
I confess without exception.
I rejoice without attachment in the pure Dharma pervading the ten directions;
Activity free of attachment and beyond the three spheres,
Unflawed by the flour extreme views.
Perfect bodhicitta awakens.
To the Buddhas of the three times,
I offer my body of three-fold purity.
Gathering the virtue of lifetimes,
I dedicate it to the great, fully-awakened state.

DZA HUNG BAM HO. The field of refuge dissolves into oneself.

HUNG. The state of vajra wrath severs hatred.
The blazing great blue weapon
Arises as a bindu in the center of space.
Light rays of burning brilliance radiate forth,
Cleansing attachment to the reality of the container of existence and its contents of beings into the space of ultimate truth.
The magical display of primordial wisdom is
The consecutive stack of elements and Mt. Meru.
Upon this, the celestial palace of great liberation
Is surrounded by wrathful charnel grounds complete in every aspect.
In the center is a blazing wheel.
Upon this is a multi-colored lotus, moon, sun and
The intertwined male and female Mahadeva.
Intrinsic awareness – HUNG – emanates and absorbs.
Self-nature arises as the perfect uncontrived deity,
Great Splendor Vajra Kumara,
Blue-black in color, with three heads and six arms.
The right face is white and laughing; the left is red and reviling; and the central one is terrifying.
The two right hands of his six arms
Brandish a nine-and five-pointed vajra.
The two left hands a mass of fire and a trident, and
The lower two twirl a Mt. Meru kila.
His four legs in the advancing posture
Suppress Maha Rudra.
Exhibiting the wrathful ferocity of the nine dances.

HUNG HUNG is the brilliance of vajra speech.
Spreading wings of skillful means and wisdom
He is adorned in charnel ground ornaments.
The twenty-one thousand hairs of his head swirl upward, and
The pores of his body are filled with millions of vajras.
His supreme consort, Diptachakra,
Light-blue in color and wearing the ornaments of the five mudras,
Holds an utpala flower and a skull cup.
Joined in union with her right leg is extended and her left leg wrapped about his waist,
Their vajra and lotus delight in union.
Above their heads soars the great lord of garudas.
Standing in the midst of a mass of primordial wisdom fire,
Clearly conceive the commitment being and the primordial wisdom being to be inseparable.
In the heart is the primordial wisdom being
Vajrasattva, white, clear and brilliant.
Holding vajra and bell and adorned in Sambhogakaya ornaments,
He sits in the half-lotus posture upon a lotus and moon disc.
In the center of a tent of light in his heart
Is a five-pointed vajra standing upon a sun. In its center
Is the essence of life force, a blue HUNG
Encircled by the blazing mantra strand.
Inconceivable light rays of recitation emanate,
Making offerings to all the Buddhas and gathering all blessings.
Through purification of their defilements, all sentient beings become the deity.
The mudra of the “Kila of Existence” awakens.
The action of Dharma protectors is impelled.
The viciousness of the eight classes of demons is annihilated, and
The hosts of obstacles and obstructing forces are completely destroyed.
Existence arises as the spontaneously-present
Body, speech and mind of Great Splendor.

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA SARWA BIGHANAN BAM HUNG PHET

Reciting thus, at the end of the session:

The entire mandala of the “Kila of Existence”
Dissolves into the great bindu of the mind.

HUNG HUNG HUNG

From the expanse of truth of Great Splendor
Arises the luminous mandala of enlightened body, speech and mind.

PHET PHET PHET. BENZAR KA WA TSI RAKCHA HAM

Thus, the dissolution and re-emergence.

May all beings gloriously attain
The state of Vajra Kumara,
The spontaneously-present body, speech and mind,
The nonexistent mandala of primordial wisdom.

Thus, engage favorable conduct through the prayer of dedicating merit. I, Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje, wrote this in order to benefit those who practice.

Translated by Yeshe Nyima.

Vowels and Consonants (Ah Li Ka Li):

AH AH E E OO OO RI RI LI LI AY AY OH OH AM AH KA KHA GA GHA NGA TSA TSHA DZA DZHA NYA TRA THRA DRA DHRA NRA TA TA DA DHA NA PA PA PA BHA MA YA RA LA WA SHA KA SA HA KYA

One-Hundred Syllable Mantra:

OM VAJRA SATO SAMAYA MANU PALAYA VAJRA SATO TE NO PA TITHRA DRI DHO ME BHA WA SUTO KHAYO ME BHA WA SUPO KHAYO ME BHA WA ANU RAKTO ME BHA WA SARWA SIDDHIM ME PRA YATTSA SARWA KARMA SU TSA ME TSITTAM SHRE YAM KU RU HUNG HA HA HA HA HO BHA GA WAN SARWA TATAGATA VAJRA MA ME MUNTSA VAJRI BHA WA MAHA SAMAYA SATO AH

Mantra of Interdependent Origination (tendril nyingpo):

OM YE DHARMA HE TU PRA BA WA HE TUN TE KHEN TATAGATO HAYA WA DET TE KHEN ZA YO NI RO DHA EWAM BHADI MAHA SHRA MA NRA SO HA

To Close the Session (tun-tsam or ton-tsig):

Inviting the great, glorious Vajrakilaya and his entourage,
I make outer, inner and secret offerings.
I praise the miraculous activity of the qualities of your body, speech and mind.
I confess dishonesty, inappropriate action and mistakes.
I pray for the accomplishment of your mind of love and compassion.

Prayer of Good Fortune: A Rainfall of Flowers (ta-shi):

HUNG. By the ocean of blessings of the Vidyadharas, holders of skillful activity,
By the treasure of all the attainments of Vajrakilaya of existence,
By the swift mamos and dakinis who possess miraculous activity,
By the deities of the mandala of Vajrakilaya, may there be good fortune.

HIS HOLINESS DUDJOM RINPOCHE
Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje
Supreme Head of the Nyingmapa School
THE MIRACULOUS ACTIVITY SADHANA (TRINLEY) OF VAJRAKILAYA, THE RAZOR WHICH DESTROYS AT A TOUCH

A (METHOD) WHICH SUBDUES THE WARRING CLASSES OF DEMONIC FORCES

Pudri Reg Pung

YESHE MELONG
Pacific Region Yeshe Nyingpo Media and Archives

LINEAGE PRAYER:

To the All-Pervading Lord, the primordial Buddha Samantabhadra,
To Vajrasattva, the inseparability of wisdom and magical display,
To the blazing form of Vajrakumara.
I pray that we may fully accomplish your miraculous activity.
To the holder of the secret treasure, the Great (Dakini) Day Way Khorlo
To the lotus feet of Odzer Langpo (Prabhahasti), completely accomplished in miraculous activity,
To the Glorious Heruka Dorje Thod-Treng Tsal.
I pray that we may fully accomplish your miraculous activity.
To the secret consort Karchenza entrusted with the prophesized teachings,
To the profoundly secret liberated incarnate treasure revealer,
To the blessed Lineage Holders, and to the root and lineage lamas,
I pray that we may fully accomplish your miraculous activity.
(To you who have) the three pure mandalas of form, sound and pure awareness,
(To you who have) completely accomplished the four miraculous activities,
(To you whose) spontaneous miraculous activities are unobstructed,
I pray that I may be victorious over the four demonic forces and attain the supreme accomplishment.

Written by Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje. May it be auspicious.
First Section:
Preparation (jor-wa):

The first section is the preparation. The supports for accomplishing the commitments, the outer and inner offerings, and so forth, and all the appropriate articles for puja are arranged according to the method of the text. First, purify the mindstream.

CHOK CHU’I KYAB YUL TAM CHEC PAL CHEN PUR PA’I KYIL KHOR GYI KHOR LO’I NAM PAR ROL PA. BENZAR SA MA DZA

The deities fill the sky; in their precence, recite:

To the glorious Buddha, the Vajra Master, and
To the Buddhas of the three times, I pay homage.
In the field of true of the Three Supreme Jewels,
I take refuge with a mind free of duality.
I beseech you to partake of the pure offerings of
Actual and mentally-emanated riches.
All faults and obstacles which impede the river of spiritual attainment
I confess without exception.
I rejoice without attachment in the practice of the pure
Dharma which pervades the ten directions and the three times.
Having purified the four extreme views,
The unstained bodhicitta is completely awakened.
To the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas
I offer the three purities.
All virtue that has been acquired in all of my past lifetimes,
I amass together and dedicate to the great fully-awakened state.

This accumulates merit; then:

DZA HUNG BAM HO. The refuge field dissolves into oneself.

The Wheel of Protection (tsam-ched-pa):

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA HUNG PHET. RANG NYID KED CHIG GI PAL CHEN DOR JE ZON NU YUM DANG CHEI PA RAB TU BAR WA’I GAR GYI TRIN MI ZED PAR TRO WA’I KUR GYUR

Instantly, I become the great glorious Vajrakilaya with consort, their bodies intensely blazing with unbearable clouds of dancing fire. (Consider this.)

Offering the Kar Tor

Image

(In the place where you will practice, set out the white torma.)

RAM YAM KHAM. TONG PA’I NGANG LEI BHRUM LEI RINPOCHE’I NOD ZAB CHING GYA CHE WA’I NANG DU TORMA KHA DOK DRI RO NU PA PUN SUM TSOK PAR GYUR

RAM YAM KHAM cleanses and purifies the offerings. From within the nature of emptiness appears the letter BHRUM which transforms into a vast and deep jeweled vessel, within which is the torma that possesses the power of color, smell, taste and all good things.

OM AH HUNG blesses the tormas.

(The following part of the Kar Tor is usually done only once on the first day. Go to the Kek Tor.)

BHUMI PATI SAPARIWARA BENZAR SA MA DZA invites the Lords of the Land.

SA TA NA PATI CHE TRA PA LEN TSA NAMA SARWA TATAGATE BHAYO BI SHA MU KHE SHYA SARWA TA KHAM UTGATE SAPARANA IMAM GA GA NA KHAM SO HA
(Repeat three times, which makes offerings.)

Whoever is staying here, gods and nagas,
Yakshas, rakshas, or any others,
In the presence of the mandala,
I ask you to please grant this land.

(Saying this, believe that the request is granted and that the gods, et al, go back to their own places.)
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Re: The Protectors (Dharmapalas), by H.E. Shenphen Rinpoche

Postby admin » Fri Feb 03, 2023 5:40 am

Part 2 of 3

Offering the Gek Tor

(In the place where you will practice, set out the red torma.)

SARWA BHU TA AH KAR KA YA DZA

SARWA BIGHANAN NAMA SARWA TATAGATE BHAYO BI SHA MU KHE BHYA SARWA TA KHAM UTGATE SAPARANA IMAM GA GA NA KHAM GRI HANE DAM BALINGTE SO HA
(Repeat three times.)

HUNG. Listen, you demonic and deceiving forces,
Do not disobey my command!
The secret vajra command ---
If you defy this,
With great wrath and power,
Your heads will be shattered into a hundred pieces.
So get out now!

HUNG HUNG HUNG SARWA BIGHANAN U TSITHRA YA PHET

HUNG. A great rain of phurbas flashing like lightening
Forms the phurba canopy.
Below, gathered phurbas blazing like fire
Form the phurba ground.
Phurba sparks like shooting stars,
And phurbas fill all of space to the boundaries.
Do not cross over this phurba boundary!

SARWA TIK CHA NA BENZAR DZOLA MA HA KRO DHA RAKCHA RAKCHA HUNG HUNG HUNG

Confession (shak-pa):

HUNG. All appearances of existence are the nature of body, speech and mind,
Primordially free of the stain of defilements.
Through ignorance, I am bound by attachment to ordinary perception.
I confess to the nature of my own pure awareness and luminosity.

SAMAYA SHUDDHE AH

The Descent of Blessings (chin-wab-pa):

Give rise to splendor by burning incense and playing music.

HUNG. Vidyadharas (pure awareness holders) of Vajrakilaya,
Transform all existence into the vajra nature.
To accomplish the wrathful primordial wisdom being,
The Vajrakilaya of existence,
Bestow upon us your great blessings.
Great powerful ones, bestow upon us empowerment.
Mighty ones, please bestow upon us your power.
Show us the signs and characteristics of your blessings.
Bestow upon us the accomplishment of Vajrakilaya.

SARWA SAMAYA JNANA AHBESHAYA HUNG HUNG HUNG

Blessing the Offering Materials (chod-dzei chin-lab):

RAM YAM KHAM

Instantly, from the sphere of Emptiness,
This realm appears as the display of the charnel ground.
Massive clouds of unsurpassable outer, inner and secret
Offerings pervade space.

OM BENZAR ARGHAM PADYAM PUSHPE DHUPE ALOKE GENDHE NEWIDYA SHABDA PANTSA KAMA GUNA SARWA PUDZA AH HUNG

BODHI TSITTA GANA GUHYA PUDZA AH HUNG

OM AH HUNG MAHA PANTSA AMARITA RAKTA BALINGTA HUNG HRI TA

To bless the offerings, repeat seven times.

The Second Section: The Main Practice (ngo-zhi)

The Clear Visualization of the Commitment Mandala:

HUNG. Vajra wrath severs all anger and hatred.
In the center of the space of this blazing
Great blue weapon arises a bindu.
Light rays of great burning brilliance radiate forth,
Cleansing the grasping to the reality of the container (the world) and its essence (beings) into the Sphere of Ultimate Truth.
The magical display of primordial wisdom is
The consecutive pile of elements and Mount Meru.
On top of this, surrounded by the perfectly complete wrathful charnel grounds,
Is the celestial mansion of great liberation.
In the center of this is a blazing wheel, in whose center
Is a variegated lotus, moon and sun disk and
The intertwined male and female Mahadeva.
Above them is one’s own pure awareness as the letter HUNG, emanating and absorbing.
Oneself arises as the complete uncontrived deity,
The glorious great Vajrakilaya,
Blue-black in color, with three heads and six arms.
His right head is white and laughing, the left one is red and reviling, and the central one is terrifying.
The two right hands of his six arms
Are brandishing a nine-pointed vajra and a five-pointed vajra;
The left two a mass of fire and khatvanga.
The last two are twirling a Mount Meru phurba.
Standing in the advancing posture, his four legs
Are pressing down the head of Maha Rudra.
He exhibits the wrathful ferocity of the nine dances.
HUNG HUNG, he possesses the brilliance of vajra speech.
He raises and spreads the two wings of skillful means and wisdom.
Glorious, he is adorned in cemetery ornaments.
The twenty-one thousand hairs on his head twirl upward, and
The pores of his body are filled with millions of vajras.
His great consort, Khorlo Gyeidebma
Light-blue in color, holds an utpala flower and a skullcup and
Wears the ornaments of the five mudras.
Embracing her consort, her right leg is extended, and her left leg is drawn up about his waist.
The vajra and lotus are delighting in union.
Above their heads is soaring the great lord of the garuda family.
They are standing in the midst of a mass of wisdom fire.
Surrounding are the twenty-one supreme sons with their emanations,
Arisen from the nature of one’s own pure awareness and one’s own creative luminosity.
From the union of the yab-yum, clouds of bodhicitta arise,
From which globes of light emanate into space.
Outside of this, on the spokes of a wheel are
Hung Dzed, Nam Gyal, Yug Ngon Chen,
Shinje, Mi Yo, Tam Drin Gyal,
Dod Gyal, Dud Tsi, Ham Sum Gyal,
And tob Po Che, all of whose bodies are blue in color.
Intwined in inseparable union with their consorts,
They are twirling and stabbing meteorite phurbas.
Clouds of zajeds, sojeds, and po-nya are emanating outward.
At the four entrances are four female door protectors, the four miraculous activities.
Surrounding this are the many Dharma protectors.
This skillful display of wisdom is inconceivable.
The three places are marked by the three seed syllables.
Sealed with the mudras of body, speech and mind,
The vessel of the universe, the essence of beings and consciousness being completely pure,
One receives initiations from the five wisdoms.

OM AH HUNG. HUNG OM TRAM HRI AH. ABHI KHIN TSA HUNG.

Invitation of the Wisdom Beings (ye-she-pa kyne-dren-pa):

HUNG. To establish the phurba of existence and
To receive empowerment and accomplishment,
We invite the wrathful primordial wisdom beings to come here.
Inviting the great wrathful one and his entourage,
Signs and characteristics are revealed and
The accomplishment of Vajrakilaya is bestowed.

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA BENZAR SA MA DZA DZA HUNG BAM HO
Requesting the Commitment being and the Wisdom Being to Reside Inseparable (dam-ye nyi-med-du-zhuk-su-sol-wa):

HUNG. To perform the miraculous activity of the Buddha,
You employ the path of skillful means for the sake of sentient beings.
Taming beings through love and compassion,
Remain very joyful and firm.

SAMAYA TITHRA LHEN

Homage (chag-cha-wa):

HUNG. In order to destroy the poisons of the three realms,
You show great vajra pride.
To the vajra rakshas,
With a single-pointed mind, I pay homage.

AH TI PU HO PRA TI TSA HO.

Offerings (chod-pa-bul-wa): The Conventional Offering (tun-mong nyer-chod):

HUNG. Unsurpassable desirable offerings
Emanate as a great cloud of bodhicitta
The sense fields and their objects of cognition become nondual
In the supreme enjoyment of the wealth of great bliss.

OM SHRI BENZAR KUMARA SAPARIWARA ARGHAM PADYAM PUSHPE DHUPE ALOKE GENDHE NEWIDYA SHABDA PANTSA KAMA GUNA PRATITSA SO HA

The Special Offerings: Medicine (khyed-par men-chod):

HUNG. Self-arisen and primordially pure,
The eight thousand herbs of prepared medicines and
The supreme samaya of alchemical mercury
Are mixed together into one powerful taste.
May all the deities of the mandala accept this offering and
Bestow the accomplishment of unsurpassable magical transformation.

MAHA PANTSA AMRITA KHA HI

The Torma Offering (tor-ma’i chod-pa):

HUNG. The marvelous samaya substance of this great torma,
Emanated from the expanse of the unborn dharmata, is
Marvelously adorned with the five sense qualities.
May the glorious one and his entourage be fulfilled.
SARWA BALINGTA KHA HI

The Rakta Officering (rak-ta’I chod-pa):

HUNG. To empty the three realms of existence,
The blood of transmigratory existence, whose nature is delusion,
Is collected in a red skullcup which
I offer to the mouths of the deities of the mandala.
MAHA RAKTA KHA HI

The Offering of the Three Poisons (dug-sum-gyi chod-pa):

HUNG. Heaps upon heaps of the great flesh of ignorance,
The flooding ocean of the blood of desire, and
Mountains upon mountains of the bones of anger,
I offer to the great glorious one and his entourage.

MAHA MAMSA RAKTA KINGNI RITI KHARAM KHA HI

The Offering of the Liberation of Union (jor-droil gyi chod-pa):

HUNG. In the mortar of the blazing wrathful female,
By the beat of the vajra hammer,
Even gods can be slain.

KHATAM KHATAM KHATAM. HUNG HUNG HUNG. PHET PHET PHET. BENZAR YAKSHA KRODHA KHA KHA KHA RAM KHA HI HA HA HUNG HUNG PHET PHET

The Praises (tod-pa):

HUNG. From the very nature of the peaceful Dharmakaya, comes
The Sambhogakaya, the great glorious one, from whom
Arises the three mandalas of the Nirmanakaya.
To Vajrakilaya, I give praise.
The unbearable blue-black raksha body
Possessing the nine dances of wrath and rage and
The brilliant ferocity of a hundred thousand suns,
To the vajra body, I give praise.
With the terrifying HA HA HUNG PHET,
The raging roar like a thousand dragons and
The vajra laugh which shakes the three realms,
To the speech of the heruka, I give praise.
All-pervasively profound and clear, without any point of reference,
The vajra realm is completely beyond action.
Inexpressible great primordial wisdom –
To the mind of the wrathful king, I give praise.
One’s own expression, the display of magical activity, is
The emanating and gathering back of the body, speech and mind, from which
Inconceivable wisdom emanations pervade.
To all the deities of the mandala, I give praise.

The Recitation (dei-pa cha-wa):
Exhortation (dzab-kul):

OM. In former times you took the great vow
To liberate all demons and rudras and
To completely ripen all sentient beings.
Now I request your skillful miraculous activity.
Give rise to the brilliance of the blazing body and
The roar of vajra speech.
Possessing the life of great wisdom,
Quickly bestow the two accomplishments.

Visualization (dei-mik):

Within my heart as the great Vajrakilaya
Is the primordial wisdom being,
Vajrasattva, white, clear and bright
Holding vajra and bell and dressed according to the Sambhogakaya,
He sits in the half lotus posture upon a lotus and moon disc.
In the center of a tent of light in his heart
Is a five-pointed vajra upon a sun disc, in whose center
Is the essence of the life force, a blue HUNG,
Encircled by the blazing mantra mala.
By recitation, inconceivable light rays emanate,
Making offerings to all the Buddhas and gathering all blessings.
Through the purification of their defilements, all sentient beings are transformed into deities.
The mudra of the phurba of existence awakens.
The action of the Dharma protectors is impelled,
The viciousness of the eight classes of demons is annihilated, and
The hosts of obstacles and obstructing forces are completely destroyed.
Existence arises as the spontaneous accomplishment
Of the body, speech and mind of the great, glorious one.

Thus, visualize with single-pointed concentration according to the essential instructions.

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA SARWA BIGHANAN BAM HUNG PHET

This is the recitation of the root mantra.

The Recitations of Vajrakilaya
Pudri Reg Pung

I. The Recitation of Approach (nyen pa)

From the “meditative absorption being” in the heart
Arises an unbroken strand of mantric syllables.
Passing out of the mouth of the “wisdom being,”
It passes into the mouth of the Consort.
Passing through the womb, it travels the hollow passageway of the vajra.
Passing into the secret place of the “wisdom being,”
It dissolves into the vital life force
And causes the supreme primordial wisdom of bliss and emptiness to blaze.

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA SARWA BIGHANAN BAM HUNG PHET

II. The Recitation of Accomplishment (drup pa)

PHET DZA

From this point until receiving the final spiritual attainments, all sessions of recitation should begin with PHET DZA in order to open the in-front mandala. After reciting the mantra and visualizing the general recitation visualization, visualize the special visualization for Accomplishment.

From the three layered beings in the heart
Emanates light that goes to all the Buddhas of the ten directions and
To the principal deity and entourage of the in-front mandala.
Dissolving into their hearts, offerings are made and they are invoked.
The spiritual accomplishments of enlightened body, speech and mind –
In the form of a red mantra mala –
Passes out of the navels of all the deities,
Enters into our own navels, and
Dissolves into the life force HUNG.
The sound of the mantra resounds everywhere.

With the above, recite the seventeen-syllable mantra, further adding the visualization called “breaking the hive of bees.”

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA SARWA BIGHANAN BAM HUNG PHET DZA HUNG AH

III. The Activity Recitation (leg gyur)

At this time, each session should be divided into two sections, the first for the “close approach of the Oath-bound Protectors” and the second for the “close approach of the wrathful mantra.”

First: The Recitation of the Approach of the Oath-Bound Protectors (dam chen nye war nyen pa)

From the mantra strand of the self and in-front mandalas,
Red light in the form of the red syllable DZA emanates forth.
All of the male and female Kilaya protectors and Oath-bound Protectors
Are hooked by the light and brought before one.
Then hot and rough rays of light
Wrathfully exhort them to activity. They liberate whatever enemy or
Obstructive force that is visualized.

Recite the mantra, combining the four essences.

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA DZA HUNG BAM HO. KATAM KAYE. DZAYE BIDZAYE. ADZITI APARA DZITI. MARA SENA PRAMAR DHANAYE HUNG PHET.

Second: The Recitation of the Close Approach of the Wrathful Mantra (ngen ngak nye war nyen pa)

From the deities of the three mandalas,
Small Trowo “Wrathful Ones” and weapons emanate forth.
The sound of the mantra resounds like the roar of 1,000 dragons.
All obstacles of demonic, deceptive and obstructing forces
Are completely burned by the light rays and sparks of fire.
They are destroyed into dust.

Applying the visualization of “flying sparks from the blacksmith’s anvil,” recite the wrathful razor mantra.

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA MA RAKMO YAKMO KALA RUPA NYING TSA LA YAM YAM. SOG LA YAM YAM. NYING LA TRIL TRIL. SOG LA CHUM CHUM. TSITTA SOG LA DUNG DUNG. NYING TRAG SOG LA SHED DZA. TUM RI LI LI. NYING TSEG TSEG. UR UR. SHIG SHIG. GUL GUL. NYAG NYAG. SOD SOD. DHATI MA MA KARMA. SHI GHRAM KARAYE. MARA SENA PRAMAR DHANAYE HUNG PHET

The numbers of recitation for these two mantras are one-tenth of the total of the Recitation of Close Approach.

IV. Long-Life Recitation

In the heart of the self and in-front Great Glorious One …, etc., according to the liturgy of the long-life practice.

Translated by Yeshe Nyima.

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA DZA HUNG BAM HO. KATAM KAYE DZAYE BIDZAYE. ADZITI APARA DZITI. MARA SENA PRAMAR DHANAYE HUNG PHET

This is the four heart mantras combined into one.

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA MA RAKMO YAKMO. KALA RUPA NYING TSA LA YAM YAM. SOG LA YAM YAM. NYING LA TRIL TRIL. SOG LA CHUM CHUM. TSITTA SOG LA DUNG DUNG. NYING TRAG SOG LA SHED DZA. TUM RI LI LI. NYING TSEG TSEG. UR UR. SHIG SHIG. GUL GUL. NYAG NYAG. SOD SOD. DHATI MA MA KARMA. SHI GHRAM KARAYE. MARA SENA PRAMAR DHANAYE HUNG PHET.

This is the wrathful razor mantra. Attach the recitation mantra and recite what is appropriate.

(If doing Lower Activity, go to Protection – sung-wa)

Vowels and Consonants (Ah Li Ka Li):

AH AH E E OO OO RI RI LI LI AY AY OH OH AM AH KA KHA GA GHA NGA TSA TSHA DZA DZHA NYA TRA THRA DRA DHRA NRA TA TA DA DHA NA PA PA BA BHA MA YA RA LA WA SHA KA SA HA KYA

One-Hundred Syllable Mantra:

OM BENZAR SATO SAMAYA MANU PALAYA BENZAR SATO TE NO PA TITHRA DRI DHO ME BHA WA SUTO KHAYO ME BHA WA SUPO KHAYO ME BHA WA ANU RAKTO ME BHA WA SARWA SIDDHIM ME PRA YATTSA SARWA KARMA SU TSA ME TSITTAM SHRE YAM KU RU HUNG HA HA HA HA HO BHA GA WAN SARWA TATAGATA BENZAR MA ME MUNTSA BENZRI BHA WA MAHA SAMAYA SATO AH

Om is the supreme praise, the Vajrasattva samayas. Grant your protection, Vajrasattva. Remain firm in me. Make me totally satisfied. Increase the positive within me. Be loving towards me. Bestow all the accomplishments, as well as all the activities. Make my mind virtuous! HUNG is the heart essence seed syllable. HA HA HA HA symbolizes the Four Boundless, Four Empowerments, Four Joys and the Four Kayas. HO is the sound of joyous laughter in them. Bhagawan, all the tathagatas, Vajrasattva, don’t abandon me. I pray that I may become a Vajra Holder. Great Samaya Sattva! AH signifies united in nonduality.

Mantra of Interdependent Origination (tendril nyingpo):

OM YE DHARMA HE TU PRA BA WA HE TUN TE KHEN TATAGATO HAYA WA DET TE KHEN ZA YO NI RO DHA EWAM BHADI MAHA SHRA MA NRA SO HA

To Close the Session (tun-tsam):

Inviting the great, glorious Vajrakilaya and his entourage,
I make outer, inner and secret offerings.
I praise the miraculous activity of the qualities of your body, speech and mind.
I confess dishonesty, inappropriate action and mistakes.
I pray for the accomplishment of your mind of love and compassion.

Thus, repair mistakes through offering and praise.

(Recite Protectors beginning with the Dam Chen Chi Tor, page 17, Daily Recitation Book, and finish with Confession, page 144 or 155, Daily Recitation Book, or Heruka Confession, page 53 of the sadhana. Afterward, if doing tsok, come back here; if not, go to Stabilizing the Presence, page 53 of the sadhana.)

The Third Section: The Stages of Conclusion (jei-kyi-lei-rim)

The Tsok Offering (tsok-kyi chod-pa):

Sprinkle the offering substances with amrita.

OM SARWA DRA CHAM BI SHO DHA NI HUNG PHET

HUNG. The primordial wisdom of self-arisen pure awareness arises as
The letters RAM YAM KHAM and purifies grasping to reality.
From the letter BHRUM arises the skullcup of space.
The letters HUNG, OM, TRAM, HRI and AH
Transform into the samaya substances of the tathagatas of the five families,
Possessing the power of taste, smell and color.

OM GANA TSA TRA KAMA GUNA HUNG HRI TA

Thus, the blessing.

Invitation of the Tsok Assembly (tsok-zhing chen-drang-wa):

HUNG. To establish the phurba of existence and
In order to receive empowerment and spiritual accomplishment,
We invite the wrathful primordial wisdom being and his entourage
To come to this gathering of desirable offerings.
OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA DZA HUNG BAM HO

Offering of the First Portion of Tsok (tsok-pud bul-wa):

HUNG. From the magical display of the five primordial wisdoms,
Inconceivable clouds of desirable offering pervade.
In order to complete the collections of ordinary and wisdom merit,
We offer this to the deities of the mandala.

GANA TSA TRA PUDZA HO

Intermediate Offering of Confession (shak-pa):

HUNG. From beginningless time until now,
Through ignorance and indiscreet actions of my body, speech and mind,
I confess having broken my commitments.
May you be fulfilled by this wheel of offerings.

SAMAYA SHUDDHE AH

The Last Offering of Slaying (drel-tab):

First, emanating rays of light, say the Power of Truth (den-tob)

“Power of Truth””

HOMAGE! Through the power of the truth of the rigdzins, the glorious and sacred root and lineage lamas, the truth of the Buddhas, the truth of the Dharma, and the truth of the Sangha, and the truth of secret mantras, intrinsic awareness mantras, dharani mantras and essence mantras an dmudras and states of Samadhi, and the truth of the infallibilitiy of the cause nad effect of phenomenal reality, through the reality of dharmata has been empty from the beginningless beginning, and especially, through the power of the truth of the yidam Dorje Zhonnu, the glory of samsara an dnirvana alike, together with the subduers of Mara, the ten wrathful deities, the traTab deities, the gate-keepers and the vast ocean of oath-bound ones, by the power of the great truths of all of these, may the general obstructions to the teachings and to beings, and especially the force4s of obstruction ot us, the rigdzins, together with our patrons and retinues – those who have raised up against us in the past, those who plot future harm and those who are now in our path, those who have forms and those who have no forms but bring harm – may all of these, wherever they may be in the three states of conditioned existence, wherever they have fled, instantly in a single moment, may they be summoned into this focal point for visualization!

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA NRI TRI BENZAR AM KU SHA DZA DZA HUNG BAM HO

(If doing the Lower Activity, go to Exhorting the Rigdzins, page 63 of the sadhana.)

HUNG. Form and formless obstructing forces of ignorance and duality
Are destroyed by the weapon of the primordial wisdom phurba and
Are transferred into the three liberations, the triangle of the dharmadhatu.
Their forms are offered to the mouths of the deities.
MA TRAM RUDRA MARAYA MAMSA RAKTA KINGNI RITI KHARAM KHAHI

Recitation for Requesting the Spiritual Attainments

(Recite the One-Hundred-Syllable Mantra 100 times.)

Clearly visualizing self-nature as the Great Glorious Vajrakilaya Yab Yum, the male consort’s secret place is a moon disc and a five-pointed vajra.
The opening of the vajra is marked with the essence of gathering, a white syllable OM.
The secret place of the female consort is an eight-petaled lotus in whose center is the triangle of the Dharmadhatu. The center of the triangle is marked with the red syllable EH.
Their joining in union invokes the five Heruka yab yum – one finger length in height – sitting in the cranium of the female consort.
From the activity of their unions, the five male Herukas’ pearl white bodhicitta
And the five female Herukas’ brilliant vermillion bodhicitta flows into the central channel of the female consort.
Falling to the secret place of the female consort, the white and red bodhicittas mix as the swirling nature of spiritual accomplishment. Transforming into OM, AH and HUNG, these syllables are drawn in through the vajra and dissolve into the life essence HUNG in the heart.
Mundane life, merit, glory and fame increase.
Appearances are overpowered,
Brilliant light blazes, and
One becomes like a sixteen-year-old.
The supreme spiritual attainment of nonfixated bliss and emptiness of self-arisen primordial wisdom blazes.

OM BENZRA KILI KILAYA HUNG PHET OM AH HUNG SARWA SIDDHI AH

Light rays of life force from the heart invoke all of the blessings of the spiritual attainments of body, speech, mind, qualities and activity of all the Buddhas of the ten directions.
In particular, the mundane and supreme blessings of the deities of the mandala penetrate into the substance of the spiritual attainments which then arise as a vast ocean of all that could be desired.

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA. DZA HUNG BAM HO. KAYA SIDDHI OM. WAKA SIDDHI AH. TSITTA SIDDHI HUNG. SARWA SIDDHI HRI.

HUNG. Deities of the mandala of Vajrakilaya, hear me!
Assembly of vidyadharas, dakinis, and oath-bound protectors,
All of you, please hear me and be my witnesses.
First, from the nyen pa recitation through the recitation of accomplishment
The two stages of completion and fulfillment according to the root text
Purifies me and ripens and liberates my mind stream.
Having fulfilled the recitation through time, numbers and signs,
Today at the break of dawn when the sun first arises
The Vajra Heruka arises and draws near.
Now is the time for the precious treasure of the spiritual attainment
Of all that can be desired to arise!
Assembly of deities in the mandala of Vajrakilaya,
In order to benefit beings through skillful means, and
To guide beings according to their needs with compassion and kindness,
By bringing to perfection the miraculous activities of all the Buddhas,
Bestow upon me the empowerment and spiritual attainments of
Enlightened body, speech, mind, qualities and activities.
May I be filled with good fortune and the deity.

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA KAYA WAKA TSITTA GUNA KARMA SIDDHI PALA HO

Kangwa

Fulfillment to be performed in conjunction with the feast of the great and glorious Kilaya:

Arrange amrita, rakta, lamps, dzagad, mamsa, tse, dagyei, bamtsangma, surchen and various foods. They are held up while the following is sung with musical accompaniment.

HUNG. Through the piercing of the phurba of existence,
May Vajrakilaya be pleasingly fulfilled.
Through sealing off the three realms of samsara,
May Khorlo Gyeideb be pleasingly fulfilled.
Through annihilating the ten nonvirtues,
May the ten male kingly wrathful ones be pleasingly fulfilled.
Through embracing the ten virtues,
May the ten female wrathful ones be pleasingly fulfilled.
Through manifesting emanations into the ten directions,
May the twenty tratab be pleasingly fulfilled.
Through liberating the poisonous form and formless negative forces,
May the twenty-one supreme sons be pleasingly fulfilled.
Through the accomplishment of peaceful, enriching, powerful and wrathful activities,
May the four miraculous activities be pleasingly fulfilled.
Through liberating the enemies of the body of the vajra master,
May the four shona sisters be pleasingly fulfilled.
Through liberating all enemies of the doctrine,
May the four reti sisters be pleasingly fulfilled.
Specifically, through liberating the enemies of practitioners,
May the four semo be pleasingly fulfilled.
Through performing swift wrathful activities,
May the three born of precious metals, iron and conch shell be pleasingly fulfilled.
Through hooking, drawing, binding and maddening,
May the four female gate-keepers be pleasingly fulfilled.
Through taming the three classes of rudra,
May the eighteen gingchen be pleasingly fulfilled.
Through causing the descent of the army into the ten directions,
May the seven mamos and four sisters be pleasingly fulfilled.
By accomplishing an ocean of miraculous activities,
May the twenty-eight wang-chugs be pleasingly fulfilled.

And furthermore:

Be pleasingly fulfilled for eons of time!
May all the deities of the mandala be pleasingly fulfilled!
May you be pleasingly fulfilled by the amrita medicine.
May you be pleasingly fulfilled by the offering torma.
May you be pleasingly fulfilled by the red rakta.
May you be pleasingly fulfilled by this gathering of food.
May you be pleasingly fulfilled by this sand mandala.
May you be pleasingly fulfilled by this offering of tea.
May you be pleasingly fulfilled by this lamp of burning fat.
May you be pleasingly fulfilled by life force, breath and vitality.
May you be pleasingly fulfilled by the smell of burning flesh.
May you be pleasingly fulfilled by the sound of musical instruments.
Become fulfilled and bestow empowerment and spiritual attainments.
Renew our very powerful commitment.

This is the fulfillment

Tsok Offering Verse

RAM YAM KHAM. OM AH HUNG

The torma offerings of pure awareness are displayed in the skull of the Sphere of Truth.
The variegated desirable qualities of the rainbow rays and points of the six lights shine.
This is the wondrous, inconceivable samaya.
To the assembly of the deities of the Three Roots, our self-awareness,
This offering is made in the state of nondual equanimity.
We confess conditioned thoughts in the Great bindu.
The interrupting enemies – the grasper and the grasped – are annihilated in the unborn expanse.
May we awaken from confused appearances to understand the foundation and accomplish miraculous activity.
Having reached the ultimate wisdom of the spontaneously accomplished four visions,
May we be enlightened in the originally pure Youthful Vase Body.

(Recite auxiliary prayers, beginning at page 181, Daily Recitation Book.)

Then, offering with the appropriate mudra and receiving with the appropriate mudra, enjoy the tsok offerings.
Heruka Prayer:

HERUKA PAL DRONG KYER DU
TSOK KYI KHOR LO WOR WA YI
DAG SHEN DRO WA MA LU PA
KYIL KHOR CHIG TU DRUB PAR SHOG

Giving the Remains (lhag-ma tong-wa):

The vajra master adds the “samaya spit” to the remains.

OM AH HUNG PANTSA AMRITA HUNG HA HO HRI

The collected desirable samaya substances of the remains inconceivably fill the sky.

EH AH RAL LI HRING HRING DZA (This invites the guests.)

HUNG. Commanders, servants and messengers,
Now is the time to heed your vow.
Please come and partake of this torma of the remains.
In accordance with your promise of the past,
Accomplish your wrathful activities.

U TSIKTA BALINGTA KHA HI

(If not doing the Lower Activity (medley), finish the Dam Chen Chi Tor, page 28, Daily Recitation Book; then return here.)

Recalling the Contract (ched-do tong-wa):

HUNG. Formerly in the great charnel ground,
You vowed to Vajrakilaya;
Subsequently at Parping (Yangleshod),
To the three accomplished Vajracharyas; and
Finally at the solitary place of Red Rock Mountain (Dragmar),
You vowed in the presence of Pedma Tod Treng and Tsogyal
And swore oaths of allegiance
To hold the vow of Dharma protectors.
Partake of this wondrous torma.
According to your former vow,
Accomplish the four miraculous activities.

Offering to the Tenma Goddesses (ten-ma kyang-wa):

OM AH HUNG JHYO

In the presence of Padmasambhava,
You received initiation and commitments.
May the four dudmos, four nodchins,
The four menmos, and the rest of the tenmas
Please come here and partake of the rinsing water of amrita.
For the practitioners of Vajrakilaya,
Increase your assistance in accomplishing whatever is desired.
May there be happiness on the borders and in the center of Tibet.
Spread the philosophical explanation and the meditative practice of the teachings.

MA MA HRING HRING BALINGTA KHA HI

The Dance of Suppression (dro-nen):

EH NRI TRI SARWA SHA TRUM BIGHANAN DZA HUNG BAM HO

HUNG. In this mandala of the phurba of existence
The beat of the dance of body, speech and mind
Destroys the three poisons and form and formless negative forces
All dissolve into the dharmadhatu

OM LAM HUNG LAM STAM BHA YA NEN

Offering (chod-pa bul-wa):

HUNG: Unsurpassable desirable offrerings
Emanate as a great cloud of bodhicitta.
The sense fields and their objects of cognition become nondual
In the supreme enjoyment of the wealth of great bliss.

OM SHRI BENZAR KUMARA SAPARIWARA ARGHAM PADYAM PUSHPE DHUPE ALOKE GENDHE NEWIDYA SHABDA PANTSA KAMA GUNA PRATITSA SO HA

Praise (tod-pa)

HUNG. From the very nature of the peaceful Dharmakaya, comes
The Sambhogakaya, the great glorious one, from whom
Arises the three mandalas of the Nirmanakaya.
To Vajrakilaya, I give praise.

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA SARWA BIGHANAN BAM HUNG PHET
(Recite three times.)

Requesting the Spiritual Attainments (ngo-drub-kul-wa):

HUNG. Great, glorious Vajrakilaya and
The great consort, Khorlo Gyeideb,
From the center of the secret place of great bliss,
Bestow the common and supreme spiritual attainments.

Recite the root mantra with this ending appended:

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA SARWA BIGHANAN BAM HUNG PHET KAYA WAKA TSITTA SARWA SIDDHI HUNG

Make offerings and praises in thanks and, feeling remorse about one’s mistakes, recite the one-hundred syllable heruka mantra.
Heruka Confession:

OM BENZAR HERUKA SATO SAMAYA. MANU PALAYA BENZAR HERUKA SATO TE NO PA TITHRA DRI DHO ME BHA WA SUTO KHAYO ME BHA WA SUPO KHAYO ME BHA WA ANU RAKTO ME BHA WA SARWA SIDDHIM ME PRA YATTSA SARWA KARMA SU TSA ME TSITTAM SHRE YAM KU RU HUNG HA HA HA HA HO BHA GA WAN SARWA TATAGATA BENZAR HERUKA MA ME MUNTSA BENZRI HERUKA BHA WA MAHA SAMAYA SATO AH

Stabilizing the Presence (ten zhuk):

Here, inseparable from these objects,
Please remain for as long as samsara exists,
Bestowing upon us health, life, wealth,
Glory, supreme attainments, and all that is the most excellent and auspicious!

OM SUPRA TITHRA BENZAR YE SO HA

The Clarification of Eternalism and Nihilism (tag-ched-kyi ta-sal-wa):

The entire mandala of the phurba of existence
Dissolves into the great bindu of the mind.

HUNG HUNG HUNG

From the expanse of truth of the great, glorious one
Arises the luminous mandala of body, speech and mind.

PHET PHET PHET. BENZAR KAWA TSI RAKCHA HAM

Prayer to Dedicate the Merit (ngo-mon):

Arising as the spontaneous body, speech and mind of
The unmanifest mandala of primordial wisdom,
The state of Vajrakilaya is obtained.
May all beings gloriously attain this level.
(Recite three times.)

Mantra of Interdependent Origination (tendril nyingpo):

OM YE DHARMA HE TU PRA BA WA HE TUN TE KHEN TATAGATO HAYA WA DET TE KHENZA YO NI RO DHA EWAM BHADI MAHA SHRA MA NRA SO HA

Prayer of Good Fortune: A Rainfall of Flowers (ta-shi):

HUNG. By the ocean of blessings of the Vidyadharas, holders of skillful activity,
By the treasure of all the attainments of Vajrakilaya of existence,
By the swift mamos and dakinis who possess miraculous activity,
By the deities of the mandala of Vajrakilaya, may there be good fortune.

One can say further prayers of auspiciousness to increase the good fortune of beings.

(End the session with the last page of Dedication of Merit prayers, page 168, Daily Recitation Book.)
Lower Activity (Medlei)
Preparation:

If you wish to enact the activity ritual specific to this deity, use the great red averting torma. Sprinkle poison and blood on the mandala that is the basis of the activity. Place on this either a properly laid-out diagram in colored sand or a painted version of a three-sided chojung with a ring of fire around it and a wheel within it complete with rim and hub. If either of these diagrams is unobtainable, it will be sufficient to use a piece of skin soaked in blood with piles of black grain on it. On a tripod in the center of this in an iron vessel, place a red torma molded of dough made from the raw flour of some black grain moistened with blood. The torma is called "thunderbolt" and has sharp, blade-like edges. Around it are small offering tormas equal in number to the deities, and on top of it is the representation of Vajrakilaya and a garuda, over which is placed a canopy of black silk. As well, wrathful ornaments are arranged in a grand and fierce display: Bowls of blood, fragrant tse grass, mustard seed, red brambles, a plaque marked "XXX" and so forth. Finally, these are surrounded by the wrathful sense offerings (the "great red" for drinking water and so forth). Gather together the necessary articles for the ritual: A phurba, an effigy and the substances for dividing, casting down, suppressing and rendering mad, the power substances, the liberating knife, the hammer, triangular ladles and so on.

To begin the preparation, envelop the phurba in gugul smoke while reciting:

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA SURU SURU ADHI TITHRA MUG MUG HALA HALA DRA GEK JUNG PO’I TSITTA NYAK MARAYA HUNG PHET

Scatter mustard seed over it while reciting:

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA MAGU TALA PRATALA SHATA RATSA HUNG DRA GEK JUNG PO MARAYA HUNG PHET

Smear rakta over it while reciting:

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA RAKTA DZOLA MANDALA RAKCHA RAKCHA DRA GEK WASHAM MARAYA HUNG PHET

Having increased the grandeur of the phurba with these three acts of smearing and so forth, purify it with:

OM MAHA SHUNYATA JNANA BENZAR SOBHAWA ATMAKO HANG

From emptiness, from E appears a phurba seat, triangular, blue-black and blazing. In the center of this, on a seat of a lotus, a sun disk and the malevolent forces of dualism, sits a HUNG, which has emanated from my heart.

HUNG SAPARANA PHET. SAM HA RANA HUNG. OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA HUNG

The phurba becomes the form of the great and glorious Dorje Zonnu with consort.

Repeat the essence mantra seven times.

(Then imagine that) they dissolve into light, from which appears a phurba as a palace, with the great, glorious one at its summit, the ten wrathful deities in thepommel, the zajed and sodjed deities in the haft, the gate-keepers below them, the excellent sons on the shoulders of the blades and the oath-bound ones and guardians on the three sides of the blade.

For the main ritual, envision clearly the self-visualization and front visualization simultaneously, repeating the mantra as many times as possible. Conclude with the protection (sung-wa):

I myself am the magnificent heruka.
The essence of my life force is a vajra with a HUNG in its center.
Placed within this are all those to be protected, myself and others,
Surrounded by a barrier of reddish white light.
From that shines light, filling this entire realm
And drawing in all the force and blessings of the victorious ones.
These are absorbed into me so that my vajra armor,
Cast in a single piece, becomes strong and without a chink.
There is the outer protection circle as well,
And nothing can cut through or destroy all this.

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA HUNG. MAMA KAWA TSI RAKCHA KURU BHRUM

Repeat this mantra.

Warding Off Harm (dok-pa):

From the outer protection circle
And from every part of my body
Issue countless hordes of wrathful emanations.
These conquer the dualistic forces of harm and their guardian gods
Like tongues of flame burning up chaff.
Even their atoms are no longer left.

Append to the root mantra:

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA NOD CHED DRA GEK CHED MA LHA SUNG DANG CHEI TAM CHED MARAYA BED JHYO DOK

Repeat this mantra.

Slaying (sed-pa):

From the hearts of the hosts of deities of the self-visualization and front visualization,
Shine rays of razor-sharp mantra light
Like showers of meteors and forks of wild lightning.
These set upon all the dualistic forces of harm
And sever their aortas.

Repeat the wrathful razor mantra to hone the wrathful edge of the power substances.

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA MA RAKMO YAKMO. KALA RUPA NYING TSA LA YAM YAM. SOG LA YAM YAM. NYING LA TRIL TRIL. SOG LA CHUM CHUM. TSITTA SOG LA DUNG DUNG. NYING TRAG SOG LA SHED DZA. TUM RI LI LI. NYING TSEG TSEG. UR UR. SHIG SHIG. GUL GUL. NYAG NYAG. SOD SOD. DHATI MA MA KARMA. SHI GHRAM KARAYE. MARA SENA PRAMAR DHANAYE HUNG PHET

The tsok is then performed up to the second stage, the confession. For the actual ritual of lower activity, the first stage is to call upon the sacred bonds.

Exhorting the Rigdzins (rig-dzin kul-wa):

HUNG. You who gave rise to excellent bodhicitta
And who represent the legacy of the victorious one of the three times,
You rigdzins, your time has come.
Help me to accomplish Phurba.
Just as you, Lopon Pedma Jungney,
In the Sandalwood Grove in India
Manifested signs, or have you forgotten?
Help me to accomplish Phurba.
Just as you, great scholar Bimalamitra,
On the banks of the holy Ganges river
Manifested signs, or have you forgotten?
Help me to accomplish Phurba.
Just as you, Shila Mandzu of Nepal,
At the quart mountain of Mandhala
Manifested signs, or have you forgotten?
Help me to accomplish Phurba.
Just as you, Kharchen Yeshe Tsogyal,
When the black raven was in the sky,
Manifested signs, or have you forgotten?
Help me to accomplish Phurba.
Just as you other rigdzins of the past
Gained attainment, I now exhort you.
Do not forget! Heed our sacred bond!
Marshal the forces of your power and energy!

Exhorting the Principal Deities (lha-kul-wa):

HUNG. From the three-sided, blazing blue-black mandala
Comes the great and glorious Dorje Zhonnu
And the great mother consort Khorlo Gyeidebma,
With the twenty-one excellent sons,
The ten masculine and ten feminine wrathful deities,
The hordes of zajed and sodjed, who are the emanations of skillful means and transcendent knowledge,
The four gate-keeping tramen goddeses,
And the assembled deities of Phurba’s activity.
Arise in your forms from undefined basic space.
For we who have given rise to excellent bodhicitta
And embarked on the unsurpassable path,
The harmful forces of dualism cause obstacles and trouble.
If you forget to help us in our flawless practice,
This will impair our previous sacred bond.
The time has come for wrathful activity.
Do not forget! Do not forget, chosen deities!
With great ferocity arouse your grandeur and blessing.
Through the miracle of sublime brilliance,
Cut off the forces of darkness at the root.
Perform your wrathful activity to avert and overpower
The curses and weapons of negativity unleashed and hurled against us.

Exhorting the Oath-Bound Ones (dam-chen kul-wa):
HUNG. In the past, in holy places of accomplishment,
You hordes of shonas, dagnyids, sadagmas,
Khebus, gings, and messengers,
You were the emissaries of Phurba.
Do not be feeble when I exhort you to act.
Accept this red torma,
For the time has come to observe our strict and sacred bond.
You know what is to be done.
Summon the obstructing forces
With haste and swiftly liberate them.
Accomplish this direct activity of wrath!

Offering the Golden Drink (ser-kyem bul-wa):

This golden drink becomes a treasure mine of inexhaustible wealth, pleasing to the senses.

OM AH HUNG

HUNG. Rigdzins, sacred root and lineage lamas, peaceful
And wrathful sugatas, deities of the entire, vast array of mandalas,
And especially the assembled deities of Dorje Phurba,
Accept this golden drink and marshal the forces of this practitioner’s power.
Masculine and feminine protectors, vast hordes of oath-bound ones,
Defiant generals, samaya-bound guardians of Phurba,
Together with attendants, servants and envoys,
Accept this golden drink and marshal the forces of this practitioner’s power.
As I am a tantric practitioner, O you guardians of my family
And you gods of this locale and you of other regions and places,
As well as you who control the years, months, days, seasons and times,
Accept this golden drink and marshal the forces of this practitioner’s power.

Requesting a Fair Witness (zu-pang sol-wa):

HUNG. From the mandala of the ten directions of space,
O lamas, rigdzins, yidams,
And Dorje Zhonnu and retinue,
Heed me with your compassion.
If I, the rigdzin practitioner who maintains samaya,
Should encounter a foe,
I have done nothing wrong and owe nothing.
Guardians, believe this! The Three Jewels remain my witnesses fair and true.
Gods and demons of the phenomenal world, you decide or make judgment!
Those nonvirtuous forces of broken samaya
First destroy the integrity of the doctrine,
Then they demean the Three Jewels,
And finally they tear out the hearts of tantric practitioners.
Now they threaten me, the yogin.
They contradict the ten virtues
And pursue the ten nonvirtues.
Since the fruits of their inexpiable deeds have ripened,
They are candidates for liberation.
O hosts of deities of Dorje Zhonnu,
Through you do not waver from the peace of dharmadhatu,
The time has come to show your manifestations of rapacious, majestic, compassionate wrath
And to liberate the dualistic forces of harm.
Do not forget! Do not forget, you with sacred bond!
Perform the enlightened activity of liberating dualistic obstructors!

Creating the Objects of Visualization (mik-ja kyed-pa):

Purify the pit with:

OM SOBHAWA SHUDDHO SARWA DHARMA SOBHAWA SHUDDHO HAM.

From emptiness, in front of me from E appears a triangular structural frame of flaming iron, three-cornered and stepped in nine stages. Its opening is narrow and very deep. In its depths churns a bloody ocean of desire and attachment with the fires of aversion burning around it and the gloom of stupidity closing in from above. At its corners, the mountains of pride are crumbling; inside and out, the red winds of envy swirl; and a rain of disease, poison and weapons falls down. It is an unbearable malestrom of bad signs and omens. This realm is filled with the armies of the minions of Yama, Lord of Death, ravenous like lions, prowling like tigers, wrathful like cannibal demons, roaming like flesh eaters and bellowing like dragons with the sounds "Beat! Beat! Kill! Kill!" Inside this karmic prison of ordinary existence are the letters NRI and TRI, smoke-colored. They change completely into the manifestations of subject-object grasping. Their bodies are naked and emaciated, with swarthy skin, and they are unconscious. They are symbols of pain and sorrow. Blood and pus ooze from their nine orifices. They are stricken down, their breath on the verge of stopping, and they shiver uncontrollably. They are essentially the amalgamation of all sources of harm.

Summoning the Consciousness (nam-shei gug-pa) “Power of Truth” (den-tob):

HOMAGE! Through the power of the truth of the rigdzins, the glorious and sacred root and lineage lamas, the truth of the Buddhas, the truth of the Dharma, and the truth of the Sangha, and the truth of secret mantras, intrinsic awareness mantras, dharani mantras and essence mantras and mudras and states of Samadhi, and the truth of the infallibility of the cause and effect of phenomenal reality, though the reality of dharmata has been empty from the beginningless beginning, and especially, through the power of the truth of the yidam Dorje Zhonnu, the glory of samsara and nirvana alike, together with the subduers of Mara, the ten wrathful deities, the tratab deities, the gate-keepers and the vast ocean of oath-bound ones, by the power of the great truths of all of these, may the general obstructions to the teachings and to beings, and especially the forces of obstruction to us, the rigdzins, together with our patrons and retinues – those who have raised up against us in the past, those who plot future harm and those who are now in our path, those who have forms and those who have no forms but bring harm – may all of these, wherever they may be in the three states of conditioned existence, wherever they have fled, instantly in a single moment, may they be summoned into this focal point for visualization!

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA SARWA BIGHANAN SHATRAM AKARKAYA DZA NRI YAM DZA. TRI YAM DZA. DZA HUNG BAM HO

Recite the above “Power of Truth” three times or more to summon them.
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Re: The Protectors (Dharmapalas), by H.E. Shenphen Rinpoche

Postby admin » Fri Feb 03, 2023 5:40 am

Part 3 of 3

Dispatching the Messengers (po-nya gyed-pa):

HUNG DZA. The time has come for the great samaya;
The time has come for the great emanations.
The time has come for the great female emissaries;
The time has come for the shonamukha goddesses.
The time has come foar the great dagnyid goddesses;
The time has come for the sadag, the great earth goddesses.
The time has come for your enlightened activity;
The time has come to show your force and energy.

HUNG. For us, the rigdzins,
Who represent the line of the victorious ones of the three times,
There are obstructing forces of dualism that harm us and bear us ill will
And hordes of maras and obstacles
That injure us and rob us of accomplishment.
By the blessing of the supreme wrathful deities,
May they be summoned instantly
And, through the profound purification of their suffering, be liberated
By this direct activity.

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA DRA GEK DZA HUNG BAM HO SHI GHRAM ANAYA HUNG PHET

Depriving Them of Their Defenses (lha-dang tral-wa):

Burn gugul and so forth as incense, and perform the separating mudra with raven and owl feathers.

HUNG. The time has come for the great samaya;
The time has come for your samaya.
The time has come to show your force and energy.
Those hindrances that obstruct our siddhi
And, through the profound purification of their suffering, be liberated
By this direct activity.

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA DRA GEK DZA HUNG BAM HO SHI GHRAM ANAYA HUNG PHET

Depriving Them of Their Defenses (lha-dang tral-wa):

Burn gugul and so forth as incense, and perform the separating mudra with raven and owl feathers.

HUNG. The time has come for the great samaya;
The time has come for your samaya.
The time has come to show your force and energy.
Those hindrances that obstruct our siddhi
And the forces of malevolence and anger –
Seize them! Separate them from their allies!

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA DRA GEK HASA YARA HASA YARA HRI DENDRA HUNG PHET

Casting Them into the Effigy (zuk-la wab-pa):

Scatter mustard seed.

HUNG. The time has come for the great emanations;
The time has come to show your force and energy.
Those hindrances that obstruct our siddhi
And the forces of malevolence and anger –
Cast them down! Overpower them completely!

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA DRA GEK ABESHAYA ABESHAYA HUNG PHET

Binding Them Into Suppression (jad-du zhug-pa):

Demonstrate binding by rope.

HUNG. The time has come for the great female emissaries,
The time has come to show your force and energy.
Those hindrances that obstruct our siddhi
And the forces of malevolence and anger –
Hold them! Strike them! Bind them completely!

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA DRA GTEK SHI GHRAM ANAYA HUNG PHET
Rendering Them Mad (nyor-zhug-pa):

Springle dugtrag and rakta.

HUNG. The time has come for the shonamukha goddesses;
The time has come to show your force and energy.
Those hindrances that obstruct our siddhi
And the forces of malevolence and anger –
Summon them swiftly! Render them delirious!

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA DRA GEK DZOLA PAYA DZOLA PAYA HUNG PHET

Transfixing Them with the Spike (dab-pa’i zer-kha):

Hold the phurba of the excellent son.

HUNG. I am the great Dorje Zhonnu;
The perfection of all Buddhas’ activities is complete within me.
My two hands are the Buddhas of the five families, joined in union.
Born from a blue-black HUNG
The excellent son Yakshakrodha appears.
His upper body is that of a terrifying wrathful deity,
While his lower body is the blade of a phurba of meteoric iron,
Sharp-edged and blazing, a vajra weapon.
Merely to brandish it causes trembling in the three states of conditioned existence;
Merely to roll it demolishes the three realms.
As I rotate it at my crown, I and my retinue are protected;
As I rotate it as my waist, negativity will not return;
As I roll it to my right, the male classes are tamed;
As I roll it to my left, the female classes are tamed;
As I stab with it, even the gods are demolished,
Not to mention the forces of dualistic obstruction.
Aim at the vital energy of harm!
The samaya to liberate with compassion
Is not killing, not oppressing.
Rather, seal their aggregates into the vajra
And meditate that their consciousnesses are vajra nature.

OM LAM HUNG LAM STOM BHAYA NEN. MOHA GHATAYA BHAGAWAN HRI KRISHI BIKRI VAJRA. HUNG KARA HUNG.

BENZAR KILI KILAYA DZA HUNG BAM HO. SARWA BIGHANAN. BENZAR KILI KILAYA HUNG PHET. BENZAR HUNG KARA HUNG PHET. HUNG KARA HUNG AH PHET.

First, absorb their longevity and purify them; then liberate them into basic space. Then, to overcome the basic ground of habitual patterns, hold the activity phurba.

HUNG. Whichever nonvirtuous forces transgress
The secret vajra command,
You great and powerful wrathful deities
Must burst into a hundred fragments the very sources of their intellects!
The forces of malevolence and anger,
Be they devas or maras,
Those hindrances that obstruct enlightenment –
Make their strength and miraculous powers disappear!

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA DRA GEK MARAYA HUNG PHET

Repeat the wrathful razor mantra while stabbing at the individual points on the effigy and scattering the various power substances.

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA MA RAKMO YAKMO KALA RUPA NYING TSA LA YAM YAM SOG LA YAM YAM NYING LA TRIL TRIL SOG LA CHUM CHUM TSITTA SOG LA DUNG DUNG NYING TRAG SOG LA SHED DZA TUM RI LI LI NYING TSEG TSEG UR UR SHIG SHIG GUL GUL NYAG NYAG SOD SOD DHATI MA MA KARMA SHI GHRAM KARAYE MARA SENA PRAMAR DHANAYE HUNG PHET

Hold the liberating knife.

HUNG. Hordes of servants, attendants and messengers,
The time has come for your samaya.
As you previously promised and swore to do,
Perform directly your wrathful enlightened activity.

HUNG MAMA PASHAM KURU MATAM NYANA KARA IDEN DHATI MAMA KARMA SHI GHRAM KARAYE HUNG PHET

Chop up the effigy.

Crushing Them to Dust (dul-du lag-pa):

Demonstrate pounding with a hammer.

HUNG. The time has come for the great sadag goddesses;
The time has come to show your force and energy.
Those hindrances that obstruct our siddhi
And the forces of malevolence and anger –
Crush their bodies and speech to fine dust!

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA DRA GEK DAHAYA HUNG PHET

Feeding Them to the Mouths of the Deities (zhal-du tob-pa):

Transform the flesh and rakta of those liberated into amrita and feed it to the deities with the triangular ladles.

HUNG. Assembly of deities of the majestic one, together with your retinue,
Open wide your mouths as big as the sky and earth,
Bare your fangs as big as snow mountains,
Extend your tongues like forks of lightning
And enjoy the offering of the five aggregates of those who have been liberated.
Complete this direct wrathful activity.

BENZAR YAKSHA KRODHA KHA KHA KHAHI KHAHI HA HA HA HUNG HUNG HUNG PHET PHET PHET

Rinse the triangular ladle with rakta and alcohol and pour this onto the torm for the oath-bound ones.

HUNG. The time has come for the great dagnyid goddesses;
The time has come to show your force and energy.
Those hindrances that obstruct our siddhi
And the forces of malevolence and anger –
As they are under my power,
Make them listen to my commands!

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA DRA GEK BHINDHAYA BHINDYAYA HUNG PHET

Thus, the oath-bound ones are fed. At this point, enjoy the tsok and perform the remainder ceremony.

Calling Upon the Sacred Bonds (tud-dam kul-wa):

In order to gather the forces that avert negativity, serve the effigy together with a drink of rakta to the main torma.

HUNG. From the three-sided, blazing blue-black mandala
Come the magnificent heruka, the splendid king of wrath,
The mother consort who arises from the basic space of the three gates to liberation,
The sons emanated from the mind of basic space and intrinsic awareness in union,
The ten masculine and ten feminine wrathful deities who tame malevolent forces in the ten directions,
The hordes of messengers who emanate from the forms of skillful means and transcendent knowledge,
The gate-keepers, guardians, goddesses of power and classes of defiant ones –
The assembled deities of Dorje Zhonnu’s mandala.
If I the practitioner supplicate you with longing,
Arise in your forms from the brilliant basic space of E TRAM.
Accept these offerings of the three poisons – flesh, blood nad bones.
Arouse your dynamic energy to send forth great wrathful activity;
Accomplish the averting of negativity.
The time for the sacred bond has come – Samaya!

Enjoining the Enlightened Activity That Averts Negativity (dok-pa):

HUNG JHYO. In the state of utterly pure pristine awareness,
Arise as the form of compassion, O heruka!
Great dorje Zhonnu, drinker of rakta,
In union with your wisdom consort,
And principal deities together with emanations and further emanations,
Around your dynamic energy in unstoppable enlightened activity.
Act to drive back and transform negativity!
For us practitioners and our retinues,
Drive back that which harms and obstructs us!
Avert the four hundred and four diseases!
Drive back the twenty-one thousand malevolent forces!
Drive back the eighty thousand hindrances!
Drive back the fifteen great malevolent forces affecting children!
Avert the three hundred and sixty major dangerous times!
Avert the eighty-one kinds of bad signs!
Drive back the three hundred and sixty yedrog demons!
Avert the eighteen causes of untimely death!
Avert negative signs in dreams and inauspicious circumstances!
Drive back incursions by the eight classes of gods and demons!
Drive back sorcery, black magic, maledictions, imprecations and curses!
Drive back the mantras of extremists and barbarians!
Drive back the machinations of kingly demons, shape shifters and the demonic forces of broken samaya!
Drive back the harm and injuries caused by the senmo demons of ill fortune!
Drive back the teu-rang demons who steal our spirits by stealth!
Drive back the harm from blades and weapons, unnatural death and the demons of recurring calamities!
Drive back the devouring demons, the demons that cause miscarriages and the hidden demons!
Avert gossip, disputes, quarrels and strife!
Avert harm to our harvests and herds, and looses from epidemics!
Avert bad times of armed insurrections and uprisings!
Avert instability and imbalance of the four elements in the outer world!
Avert the blockages and disturbances of the channels and subtle energies that causes disease!
Avert the mental habits of ignorance!
Avert disharmony, estrangement and anxiety!
Avert all obstacles and opposition!
Drive them back! O great, glorious one, drive them back with your force!
Transform them! Transform them through the great red torm!
The blade is sharp! Let is mow down all ignorance and dualism!
Accomplish the enlightened activity of averting!

Avert negativity in this way.

The Clapping of Hands (tal-deb):

Assembly of deities of the exalted one, together with your retinues,
Arouse your grandeur and blessings of wrath, rage and ferocity!
Face outward and let the sound of your mantras
Thunder like a thousand dragons.
From your bodies and mouths come the weapons of annihilation.
Diseases, weapons, poisonous vapors and hordes of messengers
Shoot like stars and fall like hail.
The forces of darkness,
The sharp edges of imprecations hurled by others by means of mantra
And the bad signs and omens that result from disharmony –
Drive back all of these, removing their power!
Fall upon the forces of dualistic obstruction!
Like tongues of fire consuming straw and chaff,
Annihilate them with no trace!

After the condensed wrathful razor mantra, append and repeat many times:

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA MA RAKMO YAKMO KALA RUPA NYING TSA LA YAM YAM SOG LA YAM YAM NYING LA TRIL TRIL SOG LA CHUM CHUM TSITTA SOG LA DUNG DUNG NYING TRAG SOG LA SHED DZA TUM RI LI LI NYING TSEG TSEG UR UR SHIG SHIG GUL GUL NYAG NYAG SOD SOD DHATI MA MA KARMA SHI GHRAM KARAYE MARA SENA PRAMAR DHANAYE HUNG PHET NOD CHED DRA GEK CHEK MA’I NYING TSA LA MARAYA BED DOK

After the “Power of Truth,” recited as before, append the following:

HOMAGE! Through the power of the truth of the rigdzins, the glorious and sacred root and lineage lamas, and the truth of the Buddhas, and the truth of the dharma, and the truth of the sangha, and the truth of secret mantras and intrinsic awareness mantras and dharani mantras and essence mantras and mudras and states of Samadhi, and the truth of the infallibility of the cause an defect of phenomenal reality, though the reality of dharmata has been empty from the beginnintgless beginning, and especially, through the power of the truth of the yidam Dorje Zhonnu, the glory of samsara and nirvana alike, together with the subduers of Mara, the ten wrathful deities, the traTab deities, the gate-keepers and the vast ocean of oath-bound ones, by the power of the great truths of all of these – for us practitioners, teachers, students, patrons, and our retinues, all disharmoniouis forces arising from our previoius karma or from present conditions – all negativities, anxieties, imbalances, sorcery, hexes, hurled curses, malevolence and obstacles – all will be turned back on the dualistic forces of harm and obstruction. MARAYA JHYO DOK! (Clap hands)

“Power of Truth”:

HOMAGE! Through the power of the truth of the rigdzins, the glorious and sacred root and lineage lamas, the truth of the Buddhas, the truth of the dharma, and the truth of the sangha, and the truth of secret mantras, intrinsic awareness mantras, dharani mantras and essence mantras and mudras and states of Samadhi, and the truth of the infallibility of the cause and effect of phenomenal reality, though the reality of dharmata has been empty from the beginningless beginning, and especially, through the power of the truth of the yidam Dorje Zhonnu, the glory of samsara and nirvana alike, together with the subduers of Mara, the ten wrathful deities, the traTab deities, the gate-keepers and the vast ocean of oath-bound ones, by the power of the great truths of all of these, may the general obstructions to the teachings and to beings, and especially the forces of obstruction to us, the rigdzins, together with our patrons and retinues – those who have raised up against us in the past, those who plot future harm and those who are now in our path, those who have forms and those who have no forms but bring harm – may all of these, wherever they may be in the three states of conditioned existence, wherever they have fled, instantly in a single moment, may they be summoned into this focal point for visualization!

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA SARWA BIGHANAN SHATRAM AKARKAYA DZA NRI YAM DZA TRI YAM DZA DZA HUNG BAM HO

Offering Torma as Power Substance (tun-tor tong-wa):

Using a red torma, perform the stages of summoning the objects of visualization and dissolving them into the torma.

RAM YAM KHAM (This purifies the torma.)

From emptiness appears the torma vessel, an enormous red conch skullcup, vast and extensive. Inside are the torma substances, which are obtained from the liberation of the forces of dualistic obstruction: mountains of flesh, oceans of blood, heaps of bones, foaming masses of brains and fat and a complete array, with no omission, of all offerings that are pleasing to the senses and worthy of being samaya substances. In essence, these have the nature of the amrita of the inexhaustible wisdom; inconceivable, they fill the extent of space.

OM AH HUNG
(This consecrates the torma.)

The assembled deities partake ravenously of the torma, which in essence is amrita but in appearance has the characteristics of flesh and blood.

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA HUNG PHET SAPARIWARA SARWA BIGHANAN SHATRUM MAHA MAMA RAKTA KINGNI RITI BALINGTA KHA KHA KHAHI KHAHI

Repeat this three or seven times to offer the torma.

To conclude, visualize the remainder of the torma as a vajra rain of poison and weapons, and send it in the direction of harm with the following.

HUNG. I am the great Dorje Zhonnu,
The splendor of samsara and nirvana alike
None is greater or more severe than I.
You who dwell or move in the ten directions,
You eight classes of gods, nagas and local spirits –
Your minds and bodies will be demolished
By my sending out the great torma, weapons, power substances and rays of light.
Clear the path and stand aside!
My target is the force of dualistic obstruction;
It is not my aim to cut down you who are without blame.
Help me, all of you! Raise your armies!
Having raised your armies, hoist your banners!
Crush to a fine dust the bodies
Of the harmful and weakened forces of dualistic obstruction!
Raise their consciousness into basic unborn space!
The time has come! Show your force and energy!

MARAYA BED JHYO DOK

(Unless it’s the last day, where one expels the torma, here finish the Dam Chen Chi Tor protector, page 28, Daily Recitation Book, and then perform the chedo-do, page 48 of the practice.)

On the final day, when undertaking the activity of expelling the tormas, perform the main ritual of averting (dok-pa), followed by offerings, praises and requests for forbearance to the assembled deities.

The pristine awareness deities depart into the sky in front, the commitment deities dissolve into me.

Once again, the great torma instantly becomes the majestic Dorje Zhonnu, with an army of the eight classes of defiant gods and demons. With wrathful, fierce and fearsome forms, they fill the three states of conditioned existence and bring down a rain of disease, weapons and poison, rapacious in their activity to liberate the forces of dualistic obstruction.

Within this context, repeat the wrathful razor mantra with the additional words appended.
OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA MA RAKMO YAKMO KALA RUPA NYING TSA LA YAM YAM SOG LA YAM YAM NYING LA TRIL TRIL SOG LA CHUM CHUM TSITTA SOG LA DUNG DUNG NYING TRAG SOG LA SHED DZA TUM RI LI LI NYING TSEG TSEG UR UR SHIG SHIG GUL GUL NYAG NYAG SOD SOD DHATI MA MA KARMA SHI GHRAM KARAYE MARA SENA PRAMAR DHANAYE HUNG PHET NOD CHED DRA GEK CHED MA’I NYING TSA LA MARAYA BED DOK

Perform the offering of the torma as before, offering it as appropriate food for warriors.

HUNG. O drinker of rakta, great glorious, terrifying Kilaya,
Tamer of maras, king of wrath, together with your retinue –
Here are the flesh, blood and bones from the liberation of the dualistic forces of obstruction – the three poisons –
The five offerings that please the senses and the amrita, rakta and torma.
As we offer these, accept them and accomplish
Whatever activity we and our retinues may request of you
And increase the force of these wrathful substances, the torzor,
These obstructions, hindrances, broken samaya, sorcery and the classes of maras –
By the power of liberating them forcibly, make them vanish without a trace.
Swiftly accomplish the enlightened activity we have commissioned, driving back and transforming
The disharmony of estrangement, anxieties and attacks.
The time has come for your sacred bond. Samaya!

Enjoin them to act in this way.

Opening the Door (go je-wa):

Cast out the first portion of the drink.

The Three Roots, dharmapalas, oath-bound ones
And you tramen who guard the four gates,
Accept this purely-prepared golden drink
And fling open the door against the forces of dualistic obstruction.
The Three Jewels are present as flawless witnesses.
All but forces of dualistic obstruction, get out of the way!
O drinker of rakta, raise your army of wrathful deities
And accomplish this wrathful activity.

Clear the way for a swath to be cut.

Again perform “Calling Upon the Sacred Bonds.”

HUNG. From the three-sided, blazing blue-black mandala
Come the magnificent heruka, the splendid king of wrath,
The mother consort who arises from the basic space of the three gates to liberation,
The sons emanated from the mind of basic space and intrinsic awareness in union,
The ten masculine and ten feminine wrathful deities who tame malevolent forces in the ten directions,
The hordes of messengers who emanate from the forms of skillful means and transcendent knowledge
The gate-keepers, guardians, goddesses of power and classes of defiant ones –
The assembled deities of Dorje Zhonnu’s mandala.
If I the practitioner supplicate you with longing,
Arise in your forms from the brilliant basic space of E TRAM.
Accept these offerings of the three poisons – flesh, blood and bones.
Arouse your dynamic energy to send forth great wrathful activity;
Accomplish the averting of negativity.
The time for the sacred bond has come – Samaya!

Then recite “Recalling the Contract” (ched-do):

Recalling the Contract (chedo-do tong-wa):

HUNG. Formerly in the great charnel ground,
You vowed to Vajrakilaya;
Subsequently at Parping (Yangleshod),
To the three accomplished Vajracharyas; and
Finally at the solitary place of Red Rock Mountain (Dragmar),
You vowed in the presence of Pedma Tod Treng and Tsogyal
And swore oaths of allegiance
To hold the vow of Dharma protectors.
Partake of this wondrous torma.
According to your former vow,
Accomplish the four miraculous activities.

Next, carry the torzor out to the site selected for disposal, bearing a flag in front of it. Begin with “Offering the Golden Drink.” Then:

Offering the Golden Drink (ser-kyem bul-wa) 2:

This golden drink becomes a treasure mine of inexhaustible wealth, pleasing to the senses.

OM AH HUNG

HUNG. Rigdzins, sacred root and lineage lamas, peaceful
And wrathful sugatas, deities of the entire, vast array of mandalas,

And especially the assembled deities of Dorje Phurba,
Accept this golden drink and marshal the forces of this practitioner’s power.
Masculine and feminine protectors, vast hordes of oath-bound ones,
Defiant generals, samaya-bound guardians of Phurba,
Together with attendants, servants and envoys,
Accept this golden drink and marshal the forces of this practitioner’s power.
As I am a tantric practitioner, O you guardians of my family
And you gods of this locale and you of other regions and places,
As well as you who control the years, months, days, seasons and times,
Accept this golden drink and marshal the forces of this practitioner’s power.

HUNG. Mara was defeated by the Buddha,
Nondharma by Dharma
The extremists were defeated by the sangha
And the demigods by Indra.
The assembled deities of Dorje Zhonnu
Defeat the forces of dualistic obstruction.
May the power of truth of the awareness mantras
Be accomplished without impediment!

Increase your resolve by reciting the “Power of Truth;” then hold up the torzor while reciting HUNG. NGA NI DOR JE ZHON NU CHE …” (page 105) In this way increase wrathful energy. If you wish, perform the ritual of averting. While chanting the wrathful mantra with the appended annihilating words, fling the great torma away as though cutting a swath. The consciousnesses of the forces of dualistic obstruction are extinguished like lamps being snuffed out, while their bodies and wealth are all demolished without a trace. Clap your hands and perform the dulmo dep. To conclude, in order to remove any traces of the zor ritual, meditate on the protection circle as you exit. The vajra master follows at the rear of the procession. In front of the door of the shrine room, make the offering to the tenma sisters with the amrita of rinse water. Perform the dance of suppression, thinking that the forces of dualistic obstruction and the energy of broken samaya are crushed under the overturned torma vessel. Returning inside, summon longevity and accept siddhis. Perform thanksgiving offerings, praises and a request for forbearance. Then request that the wisdom deities appear in the sky to depart, or dissolve them into the sacred representations. Dissolve the self-visualization and arise in the form of the deity for postmeditation activities. If there is a colored sand mandala, dismantle it while reciting the akaro mantra. Conclude the entire ceremony with aspiration prayers and auspicious wishes. Furthermore, if on certain occasions you wish to perform a more elaborate version of the zor ritual, during the preparation phase arrange the following according to the traditional procedure: torzor, tragzor, dazor, yungzor and dugzor. First, increase your resolve with the “Power of Truth;” then, holding the zor implements in turn, fling them out.
JHYO. The great and glorious Dorje Zhonnu’s appointed emissaries,
You masters of the zor ritual,
Carry out your activity to liberate ignorance and dualism.
May the scythe-like energy of the great, red wrathful torma
Flash like lightning and fall like a thunderbolt
At the target of the forms and minds of the obstructing forces!

Cast the torzor while reciting the wrathful razor mantra. Repeat the verse (above), substituting the fourth line:

JHYO. The great and glorious Dorje Zhonnu’s appointed emissaries,
You masters of the zor ritual,
Carry out your activity to liberate ignorance and dualism.
May the scythe-like energy of blood, the churching waves,
Flash like lightning and fall like a thunderbolt
At the target of the forms and minds of the obstructing forces!

JHYO. The great and glorious Dorje Zhonnu’s appointed emissaries,
You masters of the zor ritual,
Carry out your activity to liberate ignorance and dualism.
May the scythe-like energy of stones, the toppling mountains
Flash like lightning and fall like a thunderbolt
At the target of the forms and minds of the obstructing forces!

JHYO. The great and glorious Dorje Zhonnu’s appointed emissaries,
You masters of the zor ritual,
Carry out your activity to liberate ignorance and dualism.
May the scythe-like energy of arrows, sharp, swift and forceful
Flash like lightning and fall like a thunderbolt
At the target of the forms and minds of the obstructing forces!

JHYO. The great and glorious Dorje Zhonnu’s appointed emissaries,
You masters of the zor ritual,
Carry out your activity to liberate ignorance and dualism.
May the scythe-like energy of white mustard, the bristling points of weapons,
Flash like lightning and fall like a thunderbolt
At the target of the forms and minds of the obstructing forces!

JHYO. The great and glorious Dorje Zhonnu’s appointed emissaries,
You masters of the zor ritual,
Carry out your activity to liberate ignorance and dualism.
May the scythe-like energy of poison, the enshrouding darkness
Flash like lightning and fall like a thunderbolt
At the target of the forms and minds of the obstructing forces!

Making these substitutions, append the wrathful razor mantra to each verse; then case the appropriate substance. Finally, cast out the great zor itself. If you wish to perform other stages of activity in connection with this ceremony, such as rituals of suppression or a fire ritual, this elaboration is appropriate, and you should consult elsewhere.

The quintessence of ten million tantras on enlightened activity,
The refined essence of the condensed practice of the Razor,
The blazing weapon of meteoric iron, which destroys at a touch,
Was given to me by the heroine who overcomes maras.
For the ranks of dragon-like practitioners who are skillful at
Bringing down the vajra thunderbolts of wrathful awareness mantras,
I have sent this forth as a joyous feast
Of complete victory in battle with the ranks of Mara.

This, then, was composed for the benefit of myself and a few others who had need of it. Condensing the quintessence of the root text through instructions from direct transmission, I gave it continuity and made it easy to read. This text was composed by Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje, son of an aristocratic family, in his forth-fifth year, on the third victorious day in the waning phase of the first month known as Kundzin. It was composed at the Cool Grove, the charnel ground of Tibet to the east of the central capital of Lhasa. The text was written down by that learned spiritual friend, the holder of awareness mantras Dondam Cho Chog. May this cause the forces thwarting the teachings of the great secret doctrine to be utterly crushed and the banner of complete victory to be raised! Sarwada mangalam!
Vajrakilaya Longevity Sadhana (tse-drub):

If you wish to perform a longevity sadhana in connection with the activity ritual of Vajrakilaya, The Razor That Destroys at a Touch, place longevity symbols within the mandala. For daily practice, visualization alone will suffice.

After the basic mantra repetition, recite:

I am the great and glorious one. In my heart
Is an amule of joined sun and moon disks
With a HUNG surrounded by the awareness mantra of longevity.
Its repetition invokes the sacred bond with the deity’s enlightened mindstream.
Rays of light of the display of pristine awareness
Touch the hearts of the messengers –
The ten wrathful deities, the excellent sons, the gate-keepers and the rest
These fill the entire universe with countless emanations
And these with their further emanations.
All my broken, scattered spirit and longevity
And all the vital essence of samsara and nirvana
Are drawn in as amrita
And dissolve into my three doors.
I become a rigdzin of immortality.

Thinking in this way, append the following to the root mantra:

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA HUNG PHET BENZAR AYUKA SOHA
Repeat mantra.

Summoning the Longevity (tse-guk):

HUNG. From basic space comes the self-arising deity,
The majestic heruka, the lord of longevity,
The deity connected to us from lifetimes past.
As we now practice the stages of approach and accomplishment,
Through our great, sacred bond, think of us.
The time has come to grant us siddhi.
Having aroused our motivation for supreme enlightenment,
We hold the legacy of the victorious ones of the three times.
For us, the rigdzins,
Repair, restore and reclaim our spirit and longevity.
Amass all virtue, excellent signs and potent purity of samsara and nirvana
Here in this place, without hindrance.
Dissolve them into the indestructible tigle of enlightened mind.
Vajra longevity, without birth or death;
A youthful body, free of aging and decrepitude;
And life force without a thought of change or alteration:
Grant this eternal and sacred excellence.

Request in this way.

BHRUM. Pure potencies of samsara and nirvana coalesce into the life force;
That dissolves into the HUNG, in the indestructible tigle;
This in turn is sealed in the ineffable expanse of pristine purity,
In uncontrived deathlessness.

BENZAR JNANA RAKCHA AH

Thus the seal is applied. Written by Jnana (Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje, Dudjom Rinpoche).

The Abbreviated Offering Prayer to the Phurba Protectors:

RAM YAM KHAM
(Purifies the offering)

OM AH HUNG

(Blesses the offering)

From one’s heart, light rays emanate, inviting the Vajrakilaya protectors and their entourages.

OM BENZAR ARGHAM PADYAM PUSHPE DHUPE ALOKE GENDHE NEWIDYA SHAB DA PRATITSA SO HA
(General offerings)

MA HA PANTA AMRITA KHAHI MA HA RAKTA KHAHI
(Offering medicine and rakta)

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA MOHA GHATAYA MAMA SHI GHRAM KARMA KARAYE SAPARIWARA IDAM BALINGTA KHA KHA KHAHI KHAHI

(Offering the torma by repeating three times.)

HUNG. Through the command of drak tung Vajrakumara,
Possessors of the vow to protect the doctrine,
The shonas, dagnyids, sodagmas,
Kyeibus, gingchens and your entourages,
Please partake of this offering torma of pleasing substances.
Remove all unfavorable circumstances and increase favorable circumstances.
Entrusted with this desire,
Accomplish the result of firm activity.

Assigning this activity to the protectors, rest in equanimity. Written by Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje.

Sarwa Mangalam.

The Protectors

The Combined Essence of a Daily Torma Offering to the Three Roots and the Oath Bound Protectors

Namo Guru Vajradhara Ye!

Set out the torma offerings, principally the samaya substances of meat and alcohol, and sprinkle them with amrita. Maintaining the pride of yourself as a yidam, cleanse and purify by reciting:

RAM YAM KHAM

From within emptiness, above wind, fire and a hearth of skulls,
Are the five meats and five nectars in a skullcup.
These boil and dissolve into light, becoming the vital essence of inexhaustible amrita,
Billowing forth as massing clouds of an ocean of sense pleasures.

Consecrate the offerings with:

OM AH HUNG HO

HUNG HRI

From the pure realms of the entire vast array of the victorious ones of the three kayas,
Lamas, yidams, dakinis, dharma protectors,
Nodchin, wealth gods, lords of terma and of localities,
Moved by compassion, all of you please approach this place.

Invite them with:

OM AH HUNG BENZAR GURU PEDMA DEWA DAKINI SARWA DHARMAPALA BASUDEWA NIDHIPATI BHUMIPATI SAPARIWARA BENZAR SA MA DZA

Request them to remain with:

DZA HUNG BAM HO SAMAYA TIK TREN TU

Prostrate to them with the following, and imagine that they grant your request with:

AHTI PU HO PRATITTSA HO

HUNG. Both actual offerings and those that arise from meditative absorption,
The pleasures enjoyed through the senses, medicine, rakta, torma, tsog and so forth,
Form clouds of offerings filling the entire vastitude of space.
Partake of this offering and grant us sublime and ordinary siddhis!

Make the general offerings with:

OM AH HUNG BENZAR GURU PEDMA DEWA DAKINI SHRI DHARMAPALA BASUDEWA NIDHIPATI BHUMIPATI SAPARIWARA

ARGHAM PADYAM PUSHPE DHUPE ALOKE GHENDHE NEWIDYA SHAPDA PRATITSA SO HA

MAHA PANTSA AMRITA KHA HI MAHA RAKTA KHA HI

For the specific offerings, imagine:

The deities draw up the vital essence of the torma through tubes of light rays from their vajra tongues and partake of it. Offer the torma with three or seven repetitions of the following mantra, each time making the offering mudra with vajra palms opening facing upward, ending each with a snap of the fingers.

OM AH HUNG BENZAR GURU PEDMA DEWA DAKINI SARWA DHARMA PALA BASU DEWA NIDHI PATI BHUMI PATI SAPARIWARA IDAM BALINGTA KHA KHA KHA HI KHA HI

HUNG HRI

Vidyadhara lamas who cause the clouds of blessings to amass,
Peaceful and wrathful meditational deities who cause a rain of attainments to descend,
Dakas and dakinis who enact unrivaled enlightened activity –
I praise you with devotion. Grant us sublime and ordinary siddhis!

HUNG

The supreme skillful means of great bliss is Legden Nagpo,
The four-armed Mahakala, the five classes of Gonpo, Maha Deva,
Shenpa, Rahula, Dorje Legpa, Dudgon and son on –
I prostrate to and praise the lordly legions of protectors of the masculine lineage.
The consort of the sphere of wisdom, Ekadzati,
Rangjung Gyalmo, Dur Trod Mamo,
The five Tseringma sisters, Dorje Yudronma, the Tenma goddesses and so on –
I prostrate to and praise the legions of mamos of phenomenal existence.
The powerful Maning of non-dual wisdom.
The thirty generals, the feminine and masculine guardians of Vajrakilaya,
Nodchin, wealth gods and lords of terma and of localities –
I prostrate to and praise all who protect the forces of good.
In accepting this torma and an ocean of desired
Sense pleasures, each of you in accordance with your intentions,
As you were commanded and bound by your oaths to the root and lineage lamas,
Bestow on us yogis and our retinues
The most sublime form of pacifying activity! Give rise to our splendor and charisma through enriching activity!
Subdue the world with your beneficial influence! Tame the forces of dualistic obstruction and harm with wrathful activity.
Cause the holders of the teachings to live long! Spread the doctrine and practice of the teachings.
Enact activities that will increase the bliss and happiness of all beings!

In this way, make offerings and entreat their enlightened activities.

HUNG

In the center of the celestial mansion, within the play of the terrible charnel ground,
Are the wrathful sense offerings that arise from the liberation of the forces of dualistic obstruction,
And substances for offering, support, fulfillment and sadhana practice.
May this inexhaustible wealth of desirables
Fulfill the sacred bond with Legden, the four armed Mahakala, the five classes of glorious Gonpo,
Maha Deva, Shenpa Marnag, Rahula, Dudgon and the rest!
May it fulfill the sacred bond with you hosts of lord protectors of the masculine lineage!
Tame the hordes of mara with the force of the Vajra cannibal!
May it fulfill the sacred bond with Ekadzati, Rangjung Palbarma,
Dur Trod Lhamo, the five Tsering sisters and the rest!
May it fulfill the sacred bond with you, the ten million mamos of the world of phenomenal appearances!
Liberate the forces of dualistic obstruction by the strength of your ardent compassion!
May it fulfill the sacred bond with the glorious lord protector Maning, the thirty generals,
The feminine and masculine guardians of Vajrakilaya and the powerful ones of the world of all phenomenal appearances.
May it fulfill the sacred bond with the whole array of those who protect the forces of good!
Cast down the forces that obstruct the teachings!
May it fulfill the sacred bond with Namtosei, Dzambala, Tsogkyi Dagpo,
Dorje Duddul and the hundreds of thousands of nodchin!
May it fulfill the sacred bond with the oceans of jewel-like treasure-holders,
Extend our lifespans, enrich our splendor, and increase our wealth of sense pleasures!
In brief, may the sacred bond be fulfilled with you hosts of dharma guardians
And wealth deities who have made pledges in the presence of the Vidyadhara lamas of the three lineages!
May our sacred bond be fulfilled to your delight!
At this time, grant us the results to which we yogins aspire!

If you wish to include additional protector prayers, insert there here.

Finally, sprinkle amrita on the offering torma and say:

OM AH HUNG HO

The torma, which is the flesh and blood of the forces of dualistic obstruction, emanates forth as massing ocean-like clouds of sense pleasures, which possess thenature of the amrita of primordial wisdom.

HUNG

Protector Heruka, supreme skillful means of great bliss,
Ekadzati, single essence of the sphere of wisdom,
Their non-duality arising through the central channel as the black Gonpo Maning,
And the hosts of arrogant ones of the three lineages, approach!
This is the torma of the mountains of flesh and oceans of blood of the forces of dualistic hindrance,
A treasury of sense pleasures, by nature the amrita of primordial wisdom.
I offer these superb clouds of offerings, from which fall a rain of everything delightful,
As a great sign of my appreciation for the excellence you have carried out formerly,
Accept it now as a token. To reiterate the activities that I presently request –
Guard the teachings of the buddhas, extend the lifespans of those who hold these teachings,
Protect the communities of sangha and increase benefit and happiness in the world.
In particular, we who are teachers and students, patrons and beneficiaries,
Guard and protect us undistractedly until we attain enlightenment.
Dispel all adverse conditions and bring a rain of supportive conditions!
Whether pacifying, enriching, attracting, or liberating,
Quickly accomplish whatever enlightened activities I entrust to you!

This is an easy-to-use practical beneficial to self and others, compiled from the realizations of many vidyadhara’s into a concise liturgy by Jigdral Yeshe Dorje.

OM SHRI BENZAR DHARMAPALA SAPARIWARA ARGHAM PADYAM PUSHPE DHUPE ALOKE GHENDE NEWIDYA SHAPDA PRATITSA SO HA

In the presence of the glorious Heruka,
Just as you promised in the past, now at this time,
Guard the doctrine and protect the practitioners.
To all the protectors of the doctrine, I render praise!

Thus, make offerings and render praise.

Whatever unwholesome deeds I have unknowingly committed
By not having the ability to act properly, and for
Whatever mistakes I have made at this time,
For all such shortcomings, please grant forgiveness.

Confessing mistakes, recite the one hundred syllable mantra.

Here, inseparable from these objects,
Please remain for as long as samsara exists,
Bestowing upon us health, life, wealth,
Glory, and supreme attainments, and all that is the most excellent and auspicious!

OM SU PRA TI TRA BENZAR YE SO HA

Thus, the commitment being and the primordial wisdom beings dissolve into the support.

If there is no support, then:

OM. You who accomplish the purpose of all sentient beings,
Accordingly bestow spiritual attainments.
Although you return to the Buddha’s pure land,
May you return once again to bestow blessings.

BENZAR MU

The primordial wisdom beings depart and the commitment beings dissolve into oneself.

To dismiss the worldly protectors recite:

GATSA GATSA SOBHAWA NAM

Dedicate the Merit:

By this merit, may I swiftly
Accomplish the glorious Heruka, and
May all beings without exception
Accomplish that very status.

Prayers of auspicious good fortune:

In the past, in the presence of the great teacher from Orgyen,
For the purpose of individuals who aspire to accomplish the dharma,
You vowed to protect them like a mother protects her only child.
May there arise the good fortune of all the dharma protectors and guardians.

Persevering in the activity of protecting the Buddha’s doctrine,
Assisting all yogins to uphold their vajra words of honor and
Accomplishing the orders given by Padmasambhava,
May there arise the good fortune of the ocean of oath-bound protectors!

Close on a note of well-being and excellence, dedicate the virtue, and recite prayers of auspicious wishes.

Both oneself and others benefit from this easy-to-use daily practice, and for this reason I, Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje, compiled the sources of many vidyadhara’s realization into a concise liturgy.

Gya! Dza Yantu!

A Concise Torma Offering to the Protectress of the Secret Mantra, Mamo Ngag Sun Ma -- Ekadzati

OM SO STI

If you wish to make the torma offering to the goddess of primordial wisdom, the dharma protectress of the meditation cycle of the Profound Path of the Heart Drop of the Dakini – the Zab Lam Khandro Thug Tig, then prepare in the following way.

In a clean vessel place a triangular shaped torma adorned with flesh and blood, and carefully arrange the various offering substances of amrita, rakta, and the offerings which please the senses such as flowers, incense, light, perfume and food.

Having performed the preliminary generation of self as the primordial wisdom deity, purify the offering torma with:

RAM YAM KHAM

From a state of emptiness, above wind, fire and a hearth of skulls,
Are the five meats and five nectars in a skullcup.
Boiling and dissolving into light, they become the vital essence of inexhaustible amrita,
Billowing forth as massing clouds of an ocean of sense pleasures.

Consecreate with OM AH HUNG

Purify the in-front support with:

OM SOBHAWA SHUDDHA SARWA DHARMA SOBHAWA SHUDDHO HAM

Before me, in the center of a lake of blood whose rocky shore is of white skeletons and bones,
Is a red and black triangular pillar of fire and wind, in the center of which,
Upon a lotus, sun, moon and corpse seat,
From JHYO arises the glorious protectress of mantra.
Her body is maroon in color. She is holding a corpse club and a heart.
On her forehead is a single eye, in her mouth a single tooth,
On her chest a single breast, and a single lock of iron hair flows upward.
The great terrifying mother delights in the dance of rage.
Inhaling, she steals the life force of enemies, demons and negative obstructing forces.
From her three places, light emanates, inviting the primordial wisdom beings.

Clearly visualizing in this way, recite:

JHYO. The womb of the consort, great bliss Kuntuzangmo,
The realm free of elaboration, self arisen primordial wisdom,
From the dharmakaya mandala beyond concept,
Arises the emanation body of compassion,
The great queen of all dakinis,
The subduer of the three realms of existence, Ral Chig Ma.
Protectress of the Secret Mantra, consort of liberation,
Maroon wrathful mother, please come!
Through our devotion and your samaya vow,
Only mother, please come! Please come!
Invoked by your vajra brother,
Oath-bound sister, come now to this place.

TRAG RAKSHA SAPRIWARA EH HAYA HI BENZAR SAMA DZA DZA HUNG BAM HO

In this way perform the invitation.

Request to remain with:

SAMAYA TIK TREN TU

Make the general offerings with:

TRAG RAKSHA SAPARIWARA ARGHAM PADYAM PUSHPE DHUPE ALOKE GENDHE NEWIDYA SHAPTA PRATITSA SO HA

Give amrita and rakta with:

MAHA PANTSA MARITA KHA HI MAHA RAKTA KHA HI

Offering the torma repeat this three or seven times, then:

HUNG MAMA EKADZATI SAMAYA HRING HRING DZA DZA SAPARIWARA IDAM BALINGTA KHA KHA KHA HI KHA HI

JHYO. From the charnel ground blazing with volcanic fire,
Comes the terrifying slayer, the maroon wrathful mother.
Wearing a scarf of clouds on her sky body,
She drinks the blood and eats the hearts of vow breakers.
Her corpse club shatters the heart of the enemy.
The great terrifying mother has a single lock of hair glowing upward.
With the single eye on her forehead she sees all that is in the three realms of existence.
With her single tooth she kills the enemy.
With her single breast she protects the excellent practitioner as her child.
Accept this red torma – a wealth of flesh and blood.
Through the power of your samaya, execute those who break their vows.
Mamo Ekadzati, because of your delight,
Accomplish the activities entrusted to you.
Now is the time to fulfill your samaya.

Thus, render praise:

Ngag Sun Mamo, having fulfilled the sacred bond with you,
Increase and spread the great secret doctrine.
Pacify our adverse circumstances and increase favorable conditions.
Leaving nothing undone, spontaneously accomplish all that is desired.

Thus, concerned activity is requested.

Having offered the torma, confess all mistakes.

Dissolve the primordial wisdom being into the support and absorb the samaya being into oneself.

Dedicate the merit and generate happiness and excellence with auspicious wishes.

This daily torma offering which is a source of happiness was written by Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje. DZA YANTU

A Brief Supplication Offering to the Three Protectors: Ekadzati, Rahula and Dorje Legpa

HUNG JHYO. Kuntuzangmo, Dharmadhatu Consort,
Ralchigma, great protectress of the secret mantra,
Encircled by your retinue of hundreds of thousands of mamos of existence,
Come here to partake of this offering torma of samaya substances.
Protect and care for all the doctrine of the
Secret Mantra Great Perfection.
Do not forget your compassionate promise.
At this time accomplish your activities.

HUNG. Terrifying Za Dud Rahula
Encircled by your emanations, the eight Za, the four Dongmo,
The twenty-eight constellation goddesses and their armies,
I invite you here. Delight in this torma of flesh and blood.
Don’t be idle, employ your abundantly skillful activity to
Quickly liberate the enemies of the Buddha’s doctrine and those who break their vows.
Guard the supreme practitioners as your own child.
Do not forsake your promise, perform your activity.

HUNG. Great noble, Dorje Legpa,
Encircled by Kongtsun Tenmo and the remaining cheerful Tenma sisters
With their entourages of billions of emanations,
I invite you here to partake of this offering torma of agreeable substances.
Increase the dominion of the Great Secret Doctrine and its upholders;
Do not allow its power to decrease.
Continually befriend and assist.
Don’t be idle but quickly accomplish the four activities.

Written by Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje upon the request of Chogtrul Kunzang Tenpai Gyaltsen.

The Prayer to Activate the Miraculous Activity of Marpo Lha Sum Called: “The Indignant Laugh of Blazing Powerful Wrath”

HRI DZA. The great Lhachen Wang-Chug, power-wielder of phenomenal existence,
Nodchin Shenmar, displayer of unobstructed strength,
And the blazing Tsen-god, taking the lives of the Doctrine’s enemies.
You three, manifest assemblies and messengers,
We invoke you to this place of samaya, please come here.
Authorized and installed to remain as permanent protectors of the doctrine,
We offer outer, inner, and secret substances, and the flesh and blood of enemies and obstructing forces.
By utilizing this exhaustless flow of conducive and desirable substances,
Pray, may these offerings fulfill your heart’s promise.
Pray, forgive us for whatever mistakes have been made due to confusion.
Concerning myself and all other practitioners who rely upon and accomplish you,
Grant us constant security and protection in every situation without wavering.
Clear all non-conducive circumstances, illness, and demonic force possessions.
Through your power and might, increase the dharma in this existence through concerned activity.
Overcoming the mental appearances of humans and non-human spirits,
Overpower all reverted and harmful enemies of the Doctrine.
Liberate the enemies of the lama’s body and the practitioners’ needs.
Fierce protector, now demonstrate your strength and display of your power.
At this time, may all the great qualities of mantra practice be generated.
Do not forget the command and your vow under samaya!

Thus, at the request of Ngagton Pedma Wangchen, this was written by Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje. If this prayer is carelessly propagated, harm will come to the propagator.

The Supplication to Invoke Shenpa Extracted from the Main Terma

KYA. In the charnel ground of Hechen Dalwa,
Nodchin Shenpa and your entire assembly,
Hear this call of faith and pure samaya.
Without exception, swiftly come here.
Remain in this place as the support for accomplishment.
The desirable outer offerings, as well as medicine, rakta and torma,
The five precious materials, brocades and chest of treasures,
The flesh, blood, bones, life essence and breath of the enemies and obstructors,
And multitudes of conducive materials, are presented to you
As offerings to the red-black Nodchin Shenpa
And the supreme consort, the red Sodched,
And to your action messengers, their emanations and assemblies,
As well as to your additional manifestations, to the eight classes of gods and cannibals,
And to their hundreds of thousands of assemblies.
Through these offerings, be fulfilled and recall your heart’s oath.
By constantly guarding me with love and compassion,
Enact your peaceful, expansive, powerful, and wrathful activities
As miraculous action that has no limit in its spontaneous accomplishment.
Do not ignore or postpone your samaya.

Nodchin Shenpa Protector Prayer

KHYA. With pure devotion and pure samaya,
Nodchin Shenpa, consort, and retinue,
Swiftly come forth, without obstruction.
Be seated upon the seat of great samaya.
Authorized and installed as my protector,
Outer, inner and secret offerings are made.
I fully confess all damaged and broken vows and invoke your heart’s promise.
I praise you with the plaintive sound of music and song.
Fully accomplish your extensive miraculous activities.
Do not waver; do not delay. (Maintain) samaya.

The Abbreviated Offering Prayer to the Phurba Protectors:

RAM YAM KHAM (Purifies the offering)

OM AH HUNG (Blesses the offering)

From one’s heart, light rays emanate, inviting the Vajrakilaya protectors and their entourages.

OM BENZAR ARGHAM PADYAM PUSHPE DHUPE ALOKE GENDHE NEWIDYA SHABDA PRATITSA SO HA
(General offerings)

MA HA PANTSA AMRITA KHAHI MA HA RAKTA KHAHI
(Offering medicine and rakta)

OM BENZAR KILI KILAYA MOHA GHATAYA MAMA SHI GHRAM KARMA KARAYE SPARIWARA IDAM BALINGTA KHA KHA KHAHI KHAHI

(Offering the torma by repeating three times.)

HUNG. Through the command of drak tung Vajrakumara,
Possessors of the vow to protect the doctrine,
The shonas, dagnyids, sodagmas,
Kyeibus, gingchens and your entourages,
Please partake of this offering torma of pleasing substances.
Remove all unfavorable circumstances and increase favorable circumstances.
Entrusted with this desire,
Accomplish the result of firm activity.

Assigning this activity to the protectors, rest in equanimity. Written by Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje.

The Inexpressible Absolute Confession

Behold the self-manifest primordial wisdom mandala encompassing space.

OM. The supreme embodiment of primordial wisdom, the natural mandala,
Although without elaboration, just like the full moon,
Appears as the display of compassion, without bias, equally, like the clear light of the sun,
Please come here, listen to me and be seated.
Inexpressible wisdom, the immovable dharmakaya,
The great bliss sambhogakaya, the five Buddhas and their families,
The deities of the play of the vast display of the skillful method of loving kindness,
To the peaceful and wrathful nirmanakaya buddhas I bow down.
Actual material endowments and those mentally manifest,
Like limitless clouds of Samantabhadra’s offerings,
Are perfectly arranged throughout the reaches of the pure sphere of space.
I offer this ocean of outer, inner, and secret offerings.
In the secret womb of Samantabhadri (Kuntuzangmo)
Dwell the vast multitudes of the mandalas of the buddhas without exception.
Within the one taste of changelessness,
Take pleasure in the indivisible awakened mind.
The mind’s nature is the great space of the dharmadhatu.
All phenomena are perfectly pure as the primordial realm of clear light.
The nature of this practice is the sphere beyond thought and speech.
I bow down constantly to this awakened mind in the nature of equality.
Within the great perfection of Samantabhadra, which has prevailed from the very beginning,
Are the great arrangements of outer, inner and secret mandalas.
In the pure display of phenomenal existence as the sphere of male and female deities,
All that appears and transforms is the spontaneous expression of male-female.
Great Mistress, who possesses the form of the ultimate great secret,
In the center of your lotus, the vast expanse of the sphere of space
Is the clear light realm of the great bindu of non-duality,
The embodiment of the essence of the awakened mind, uncontrived without complexity.
All appearances, are the deities of infinite great bliss.
This secret mandala devoid of gathering and dispersing,
Is the great self-nature as the five Buddha families, male and female,
The family of bodhisattvas, the hosts of male and female wrathful deities,
The assembly of vajra goddesses and the lords, masters of the assemblies,
The five glorious herukas of the five Buddha families, the ten wrathful deities and their consorts,
The four gate keepers of the sacred places and countries,
The many assemblies of primordial wisdom emanation deities,
Who are as loving as mothers and as affectionate as sisters,
The dakinis who weigh good and evil and pronounce the judgments of samaya, and
Hosts of outer and inner dakinis and yoginis.
All of you who uphold the vajra commitment, please bear witness to me.
Descendants of the vajra lineage pure-awareness holders, myself and others,
Who generate the awakened mind for the purpose of all beings,
In order to reach the unsurpassed state of awakening,
We practice the various individual disciplines of the ocean of teachings,
Maintain the supreme vow of the union of body, speech and mind, and
The vajra samaya, not lightly transgressed and necessary to maintain.
All general and extraordinary samaya,
That I successively received and swore to preserve,
Were never intended to be lost or transgressed.
With no intention to deviate or abandon them, yet
Due to laziness, I have postponed the practices.
Without achieving accomplishment, my meditation potential is feeble.
Lacking mindfulness and overpowered by carelessness,
I have not persevered in meditation, and have been distracted during mantra recitation.
Concerning the root samaya of body, speech and mind,
Overpowered by my lack of awareness, both knowingly and unknowingly,
I have transgressed my teacher’s words and contradicted the vows.
Any practitioner who has allowed samaya to deteriorate
Should not be associated with, even for an instant.
Although stated in the scriptures, this is difficult to adhere to.
The secret path is difficult to define, and so hard to understand clearly.
Lacking omniscience, it is difficult to discern who is at fault.
I have associated with transgressors in feast and fulfillment restoration ceremonies.
I have spoken about Dharma to transgressors and improper vessels, and
I have failed to be conscientious about deteriorations, their faults and so forth.
I have befriended transgressors. And due to all of this,
These faults of the obscuration of defilement, whatever they may be,
Are the cause of obstructing conditions in this life and will obscure the future.
With a mind of overwhelming regret and remorse I completely confess.
Please pay heed to me with your loving compassion and
Place me firmly in the sphere of non-duality.
Although you abide in the state of equanimity free of conceptualization,
Please bestow perfectly the blessings of absolute non-duality.
If non-conceptual absolute truth is free from elaboration,
Whatever thought formations exist, become non-conceptual.
Due to the power of conventional truth, which is merely illusory,
For the faults committed, with personal remorse I request forgiveness.

This extract is the fourth chapter of the Confession Tantra, The Stainless King. Translated into Tibetan by Vimalamitra and Nyak Jnanakumara. SAMAYA

(Repeat the One-Hundred Syllable Mantra.)

From the Stainless Secret of Vajrasattva: The Doctrine of the King of Purification, the Essence of Confession

OM. Buddha Kuntuzangpo, the primordial ground,
Vajrasattva, the Vajra Tathagata,
Great Daka (Hero), protector of beings,
Look upon me with your gaze of wisdom and loving intent.

AH. Though primordially unborn and pure from the beginning,
In the face of sudden confusion, all discursive thoughts arise.
Through this condition of the appearance of ignorance’s duality, all deteriorations
I confess in the expanse of the great pure consort of the dharmadhatu.

BENZAR. Secret lord, proclaimer of the vajra samaya,
Every broken vow and damaged pledge of the
One-hundred thousand body, speech, mind, and secret samayas,
I confess with absolute shame and remorse.

SATTVA. Having passed the time limit when violations become faults,
Which are the cause of harsh punishment,
At the command of the vajra dakinis, the monitors of karma,
I confess the accumulated causes of the great hells that obscure this life and the next.

HUNG. Great Vajra, Primordial King,
Inconceivable, free of damage and confession,
Kuntuzangpo, the expanse of pure awareness, perfect from the beginning,
Within the expanse of the dharmadhatu, without gathering or separation – AH.

(Repeat the one hundred syllable mantra.)

This King of Confessions, in just a few words, can stir samsara from its depths like alchemy applied to iron. It is an oral instruction to protect beings who have fallen subject to ignorance and thus violations of samaya. This arose from the sphere of the mind of Samantabhadra and was written down in code script for the sake of future generations. May it meet with my heart son, an emanation of myself.

SAMAYA GYA GYA GYA

This was established from code script by Trakthung Pawo. (Do Khentse Yeshe Dorje)

All deteriorated and broken samaya (are purified)
By the power of reciting this king of confessions.
By stirring the depths of the three realms of samsara,
May (all beings) attain the enlightened expanse of the three kayas.
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Re: The Protectors (Dharmapalas), by H.E. Shenphen Rinpoche

Postby admin » Fri Feb 03, 2023 5:44 am

Letting Daylight Into Magic: The Life and Times of Dorje Shugden
by Stephen Batchelor
First Published in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. Vol. 7, no. 3. New York:
Spring 1998.

The so-called Drakpa Gyaltsen pretends to be a sublime being
But since this interfering spirit and creature of distorted prayers
Is harming everything, both dharma and sentient beings,
Do not support, protect or give him shelter, but grind him to dust.

-- The Fifth Dalai Lama


Praise to you, violent god of the Yellow Hat teachings,
Who reduces to particles of dust
Great beings, high officials and ordinary people
Who pollute and corrupt the Geluk doctrine.

-- From “Praise to Dorje Shugden” quoted by Zemey Rinpoche


“A wrathful deity,” announced the London Independent with barely concealed irony on Monday 17 February, 1997 “is the main suspect for three murders in Dharamsala, the Himalayan ‘capital’ of Tibet’s government-in-exile.” Two weeks earlier Gen Lobsang Gyatso, the principal of the Buddhist School of Dialectics, and two students had been stabbed to death. Eight months later, despite exhaustive investigations by the Indian police, the case is still unresolved. Although arrest warrants for two suspects have been issued, the police believe they have gone to ground either in Nepal or Tibet. Interpol has been called in to help find them.

On Saturday 6 July, 1996, another British newspaper, the Guardian, had carried a front-page story under the heading: “Smear campaign sparks safety fears over Dalai Lama’s UK visit.” The article described demonstrations on the streets of London where hundreds of British Buddhists “chanted anti-Dalai Lama slogans and carried placards saying ‘Your smiles charm, your actions harm.’” The Nobel Peace Laureate was accused by an organisation called the Shugden Supporters Community of being “a ruthless dictator” and “an oppressor of religious freedom.”

These tragic and bewildering events have brought to the attention of the world a long-standing, arcane feud within the Tibetan Buddhist community that centers around the protector god Dorje Shugden. While feeding the West’s seemingly insatiable fascination with all things Tibetan, the murders and demonstrations have exposed a dark and troubling underside of a tradition often seen as a beacon of wisdom and compassion in a spiritually confused world. Even if it turns out that the killings were part of a Chinese campaign to intensify discord in the Tibetan community in exile, the fact remains that Beijing has been able to exploit a bitter dispute that the Dalai Lama and his supporters such as Gen Lobsang Gyatso have so far been powerless to resolve.

To understand the complex origins of this dispute, it is necessary not only to trace an outline of Tibetan history since the 17th century, but also to grasp some of the doctrinal and philosophical issues that have divided Tibetans since Buddhism was established in the 8th century.

***

On the 28th day of the seventh lunar month of 1642, the Fifth Dalai Lama had a dream of two Nyingma lamas giving him an initiation in a chapel of his palace at Drepung Monastery. One of the lamas handed him a ritual dagger (phur ba) and at that very moment he had the feeling of being spied on through a window by monks of his own Geluk order. He reflected that if the Geluk monks criticized him for receiving teachings from the Nyingma lamas, he would stab them with the dagger. He rushed out to confront them, but they already seemed subdued. He then woke up.

Earlier the same year, the twenty-six year old Dalai Lama had been conferred with supreme authority over all Tibet by the Mongol Gushri Khan, thus inaugurating the dynasty of the Dalai Lamas. This was achieved when the armies of the Mongol Khan defeated the King of Tsang, the backer of the Dalai Lama’s chief rival for power in Tibet: the Karmapa -- a senior lama of the Kagyu order. While this military victory ended years of civil conflict in Tibet and unified the country under the Geluk order, it also exposed tensions among the Gelukpas themselves -- already hinted at in the Dalai Lama’s dream three months later.

The Geluk tradition had been founded more than two hundred years earlier by the remarkable monk, scholar and yogin Tsongkhapa, who drew from all Tibetan Buddhist traditions of his time to create a compelling new synthesis of doctrine, ethics, philosophy and practice. The first Dalai Lama was a leading disciple of Tsongkhapa, and as the influence of the Gelukpas grew steadily over the next two centuries, the Dalai Lamas emerged as important spiritual figures within the school. When the fifth in the line became head of the Tibetan state, the institution of the Dalai Lama suddenly assumed unprecedented political power.

Although the Fifth was a Geluk monk, as head of state he carried the mantle not only of Tsongkhapa’s reformed Buddhist order but also that of a thousand years of Tibetan history. This would have been particularly poignant for him, since he was born into a family whose ancestral home overlooked the tombs of the early Tibetan kings in the Chonggye Valley and who were still associated with the Nyingma tradition. The Nyingmapas (“Ancients”) had been instrumental in introducing Buddhism to Tibet at the time of those early kings and in first defining the buddhocratic nature of the state. Throughout his life the Dalai Lama maintained a strong allegiance to the Nyingma school (particularly the practice of Dzogchen) and a mystical rapport with its founder Padmasambhava, who appeared to him in dreams and visions.

The Dalai Lama’s assumption of this long and complex historical identity would not have sat easily with the ambitions of a Geluk hierarchy intent on creating a buddhocratic state founded explicitly on the teachings of Tsongkhapa. It seems that this conflict led to the death of the Fifth’s rival Drakpa Gyaltsen, shortly after the Dalai Lama’s return from a state visit to China (suggesting the possibility of a palace revolt during his prolonged absence). Thereafter, Dorje Shugden was recognized by those Gelukpas who opposed the Dalai Lama’s involvement with the Nyingma school as the reincarnation of Drakpa Gyaltsen, who had assumed the form of a wrathful protector of the purity of Tsongkhapa’s teachings. They also regarded him as an emanation of the bodhisattva Manjushri.

After the death of the Fifth Dalai Lama in 1682, the controversy between these factions of the Geluk school slips into the shadows and we hear only occasional references to Dorje Shugden for the next two hundred years. The Sixth Dalai Lama was unsuited to public office and was arrested and killed by the Mongols. After the Seventh Dalai Lama was returned to Lhasa in 1720 by the Manchus, the government of Tibet passed into the hands of a regency composed initially of powerful aristocrats and then, for 113 years, senior Geluk lamas. Of the six Dalai Lamas who lived during this period of regency, the last four died before the age of twenty-one, thus failing to assume leadership of Tibet for more than a year or so.

The Thirteenth Dalai Lama came to power at the age of nineteen in 1895. Having survived an assassination attempt (his former regent concealed deadly mantras in his boots), he found himself charged with the daunting task of leading Tibet into a rapidly changing world. He proved an able leader, who sought to introduce a modest program of reform only to be thwarted by aristocrats and senior lamas. He was also a keen practitioner of Nyingma teachings. He had several teachers from the Nyingma school, practiced with them in the Potala Palace, and wrote commentaries to the Nyingma texts of his predecessor the Fifth.

The Thirteenth’s openness to the Nyingmapa was in marked contrast to that of Pabongka Rinpoche, the most influential Geluk lama of the time, whose authority rivalled that of the Dalai Lama. Pabongka inherited the practice of Dorje Shugden from his mother’s family, and as a young man also received transmissions from Nyingma lamas. After a serious illness he became convinced that the disease was a sign from Shugden to stop practicing Nyingma teachings, which he did. Although he promoted the practice of Shugden, he was ordered by the Thirteenth to stop invoking the deity on the grounds that it was destroying Buddhism. Pabongka then promised “in the core of my heart” never to propitiate Shugden again. He evidently changed his mind, though, and subsequently passed the practice on to his disciples.

The present Dalai Lama, born in 1935, was introduced to the practice of Dorje Shugden by his junior tutor Trijang Rinpoche, a leading disciple of Pabongka. This was a time of great political turmoil in Tibet. The reliability of the State Oracle Nechung had been thrown into doubt and some believed the government should switch its allegiance to the oracle representing Dorje Shugden. The Regent, Reting Rinpoche, was forced to resign, only to return to launch an unsuccessful coup in 1947. The Chinese Communists arrived in Lhasa in 1952. The Dalai Lama, his tutors and 100,000 Tibetans fled to India in 1959, possibly on the advice of the Shugden oracle.

In 1973 a senior Geluk lama called Zemey Rinpoche published an account of Dorje Shugden he had received orally from his teacher Trijang Rinpoche. This text recounts in detail the various calamities that have befallen monks and laypeople of the Geluk tradition who have practiced Nyingma teachings. Those mentioned include the last three Panchen Lamas, senior officials of the Thirteenth’s government, Reting Rinpoche and even Pabongka himself. In each case, the illness, torture or death incurred is claimed to be the result of having displeased Dorje Shugden. The publication of this material was condemned by the Dalai Lama, who was then engaged in Nyingma practices himself under the guidance of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. His views about Dorje Shugden began to shift and led to his first statements discouraging the practice in 1976.

Each time a Dalai Lama has come to hold effective political office, a controversy has erupted around Dorje Shugden. A similar pattern has repeated itself during the rules of the Fifth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Dalai Lamas. This conflict has inevitably been articulated in the vivid, yet (to outsiders) bewildering language and imagery of Tibetan culture. It reflects a struggle between two opposing visions of how best to lead sentient beings to enlightenment, preserve the Buddha’s teaching, and maintain the integrity of the Tibetan state. Representatives of both sides have included wise, moral and saintly men, who have led exemplary Buddhist lives. Some, such as Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and Trijang Rinpoche, admired and respected each other. As with everything to do with Tibet, the line between religion and politics is blurred. The dispute over Dorje Shugden is neither an exclusively religious nor a fundamentally political one. It is both.

***

Who are these invisible beings that appear to Tibetan lamas in dreams and visions, speak through oracles, predict the future, inspire awe and terror, bless those who worship them and incur misfortune on those who don’t? The Tibetan term for such beings is lha. Lha means “deity” or “god.” Such gods are both Indian and Tibetan in origin and constitute a pantheon as complex and arcane as that of ancient Greece and Rome. Yet with the advent of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism, there appears an altogether different kind of god. These are buddhas and bodhisattvas, awakened beings who have vowed to work ceaselessly and in myriad ways for the welfare of beings. While not mere gods -- who for all their powers are just another class of unawakened sentient being -- they assume the form of gods (lha’i rnam par shar ba) for the benefit of others.

Tibetan Buddhists regard these gods, whether of the unawakened or awakened variety, as conscious, autonomous beings, every bit as real as you or I. The Dalai Lama, who so successfully presents Buddhism in the Western media as rational, pragmatic and compatible with modern psychology and science, appears to believe in the power of these gods. In a statement issued in English by the Tibetan government in exile in 1996, he is quoted from a speech to an audience of Tibetans as saying: “It has become fairly clear that Dolgyal (i.e. Shugden) is a spirit of the dark forces.”

The Dalai Lama is not speaking here as a modern religious leader trying to persuade some of his superstitious flock to relinquish an outdated world view. He is engaged in an emotive debate about whether a particular god is a powerful but deluded sentient being or a buddha who has assumed the form of a god. Such is the perceived power of Dorje Shugden that both Gelukpas who invoke him and Nyingmapas who fear him are told not even to let his name pass their lips. This atmosphere of secrecy and implicit danger serves to affirm for Tibetan Buddhists their view of an invisible polytheistic reality intersecting with the human world.

Although this worldview may be unfamiliar, it is not intrinsically stranger than that of Christians and other religious believers who lack the exotic prestige Tibetan lamas have for Westerners. The main difference between it and other religious worldviews is that Buddhists know all these gods to be empty of any inherent reality. Everything, they would say, is merely an appearance as ephemeral and insubstantial as a dream. Such statements have led some in the West to assume that the gods of Tibetan Buddhism are no more than archetypal symbols: they perform a psychological function in the process of spiritual transformation, but only the naive would say they represent beings independent of the practitioner’s own mind. Yet however useful this kind of Jungian interpretation may be, it is not how most Tibetan lamas understand the world they inhabit.

For gods to be empty of inherent existence does not mean that they cannot be autonomous beings capable of making choices and existing in their own heavenly realms. In this sense they are no different from humans, who are likewise empty but perfectly capable of making decisions and living their own unique and fallible lives. The doctrine of emptiness only teaches us to see ourselves and the world in a way that frees us from the reification and egoism that generate anguish. To say the world is empty neither affirms nor denies the claims of any cosmological theory, be it that of ancient India or modern astrophysics.

To establish an authentic Buddhist state on the basis of this vision, however, requires ensuring that a correct view of emptiness be upheld by those in power. Such responsibility would be a necessary outcome of the bodhisattva’s compassionate resolve. For this reason, the Fifth Dalai Lama’s government proscribed the teachings of the Jonangpa school, who taught that emptiness implied a transcendent absolute reality which inherently exists (gzhan stong). Texts of the school were confiscated and its monasteries turned over to the Gelukpa. It seems other factions in the Geluk order would have liked to have taken similar measures against the Nyingma school.

In order to honor the historical heritage of Tibet, to affirm unity among the diverse communities of the Tibetan nation, even to be true to their own spiritual intuitions, one can understand why the Dalai Lamas would tolerate and even embrace Nyingma views. But however justified this might be in personal or political terms, it should not obscure the real and potentially divisive philosophical and doctrinal differences that exist between the Nyingma and Geluk ideologies.

The Nyingma teaching of Dzogchen regards awareness (rig pa) as the innate self-cognizant foundation of both samsara and nirvana. Rig pa is the intrinsic, uncontrived nature of mind, which a Dzogchen master is capable of directly pointing out to his students. For the Nyingmapa Dzogchen represents the very apogee of what the Buddha taught, whereas Tsongkhapa’s view of emptiness as just a negation (med ‘gag) of inherent existence, implying no transcendent reality, verges on nihilism.

For the Gelukpas, though, Dzogchen succumbs to the opposite extreme: that of delusively clinging to something permanent and self-existent as the basis of reality. They see Dzogchen as a return to the Hindu ideas that Buddhists resisted in India, and a residue of the Chan (Zen) doctrine of Hvashang Mahayana, proscribed at the time of the early kings. Moreover, some Kagyu and Nyingma teachers of the Rime (“Impartial”) revival movement in Eastern Tibet in the 19th century even began to promote a synthesis between the forbidden Jonangpa philosophy and the practice of Dzogchen.

For the followers of Shugden this is not an obscure metaphysical disagreement, but a life and death struggle for truth in which the destiny of all sentient beings is at stake. The bodhisattva vow, taken by every Tibetan Buddhist, is a commitment to lead all beings to the end of anguish and the realization of buddhahood. Following Tsongkhapa, the Gelukpas maintain that the only way to achieve this is to understand non-conceptually that nothing whatsoever inherently exists. Any residue, however subtle, of an attachment to inherent existence works against the bodhisattva’s aim and perpetuates the very anguish he or she seeks to dispel.

Moreover, protectors such as Dorje Shugden exert an enormous power over the minds of Tibetan Buddhists--be they erudite lamas, simple Bhutanese peasants or educated Westerners. While lamas teach that the taking of refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha is the only protection a Buddhist requires, they invariably supplement this with initiations into and practices of a range of protector gods. After all, the “Land of Snows” could be a harsh and frightening place. Tibetans lived in an awesome, sparsely inhabited landscape with a fierce climate, psychically populated by numerous spirits, demons and gods. The very survival of communities required a powerful sense of family, tribal and religious loyalty. In a modern, psychological sense, Dorje Shugden could be seen as the personification of a specific set of fears and loyalties in the form of a god. But for Tibetan Buddhists he is not just a metaphor; he is a real, living god/buddha whose displeasure can wreak havoc on human beings.

At a certain point in their practice, those who rely on Dorje Shugden will ritually “entrust their lives” (srog gtad) to him. This is not a step taken lightly. When the present Dalai Lama (who chose not to take this step himself) requests people to renounce Shugden, he both challenges a deeply felt loyalty and raises the possibility of frightful retribution. “Nothing will happen,” he has had to reassure Tibetans. “I will face the challenge.... No harm will befall you.”

Although some Gelukpas have heeded his advice, others have not. For those loyal to Dorje Shugden could well believe that the misfortunes to have befallen the institution of the Dalai Lama, even the tragedy of Tibet in the 20th century, are all due to a failure to heed the advice of their protector who “reduces to particles of dust great beings, high officials and ordinary people who pollute and corrupt the Geluk doctrine.” For the Dalai Lama to denounce Dorje Shugden may confirm for them that he is simply part of the problem.

***

Speaking of the British monarchy more than a hundred years ago, Walter Bagehot warned of “letting daylight into magic.” This happens today as the media peer into events that formerly only a handful of lamas and their advisors would have been privy to. The arcane wrangling and intrigue surrounding the reincarnations of the Karmapa and the Panchen Lama are disseminated through newspapers, web sites, television and radio within hours of having taken place, while grisly murders in Dharamsala lead to Dorje Shugden being dissected on the pages of Newsweek. The Dalai Lama in particular has used the media to great effect, but the fascination he has both drawn upon and stimulated now threatens to turn the magic of Tibet into mere spectacle.

If we strip away the exotic veneer of this Tibetan Buddhist dispute, we are confronted with questions which concern the very nature of the dharma and its practice. In the West we are fond of portraying Buddhism as a tolerant, rational, non-dogmatic and open-minded tradition. But how much is this the result of liberal Western(ized) intellectuals seeking to construct an image of Buddhism that simply confirms their own prejudices and desires?

Historically, Buddhists everywhere have tended not to exhibit the pluralist, postmodern values we might imagine them to possess. All Buddhist traditions make claims to truth, and when those claims have contradicted one another, then passionate, prolonged, even violent disputes have ensued. All the more so is this the case in the polytheistic buddhocracy of Tibet, where a very human dispute between different doctrinal camps has also inevitably been a struggle among the gods. Each side has invoked its own invisible beings for blessing and protection, summoned its own oracles for guidance from them, and been convinced that it was acting out of compassion for the welfare of all beings. Tibetan lamas take their disputes seriously not merely because of short-term political gain. Many of them act out of deep and sincere passion for what they hold to be true.

Yet history also teaches us that Buddhism possesses a remarkable capacity to re-imagine itself in response to the challenges posed by new historical and cultural situations. Its protean forms are testimony to the survival of a way of life that has travelled throughout Asia and is now taking its tentative first steps in America and Europe. If it is to survive, it will have to find a way of preserving the heartfelt, single-minded commitment at its core within multicultural societies that reject the totalizing and potentially repressive demands of any single claim to truth.
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Re: The Protectors (Dharmapalas), by H.E. Shenphen Rinpoche

Postby admin » Fri Feb 03, 2023 5:50 am

The War of the Oracle Gods and the Shugden Affair, an excerpt from "The Shadow of the Dalai Lama"
by Victor and Victoria Trimondi
© 2003 by Victor and Victoria Trimondi

THE WAR OF THE ORACLE GODS AND THE SHUGDEN AFFAIR

The Tibetans can be described without exaggeration as being “addicted to oracles”. The most varied methods of augury and clairvoyance have been an everyday presence in the Land of Snows since time immemorial. The following types of oracle, all of which are still employed (among the Tibetans in exile as well), are described on an Internet site: doughball divination, dice divination, divination on a rosary, bootstrap divination, the interpretation of “incidental” signs, clairvoyant dreams, examining flames, observing a butter lamp, mirror divination, shoulder-blade divination, and hearing divination (HPI 10). When the “Great Fifth” seized worldly power in Tibet in the 17th century, he founded the institution of a state oracle so as to be able to obtain divinatory advice about the business of government. This is a matter of a human medium who serves as the mouthpiece of a particular deity. Still today, this form of “supernatural” consultation forms an important division within the Tibetan government in exile. The opinions of oracles are obtained for all important political events, often by the Fourteenth Dalai Lama in person. He is — in the accusations of his opponents — all but obsessed by divinations; it is primarily the prophecies of the state oracle which are mentioned. But before we examine this accusation, we should take a closer look at the history and character of this “state oracle”.

The Tibetan state oracle:

In the Tibet of old, the state oracle (or rather its human medium) lived as one of the highest ranking lamas in the Nechung residence. “It” had at its command a considerable “court” and celebrated its liturgies in a temple of its own. The predominant color of the interior temple was black. On the walls of the gloomy shrine hung mysterious weapons, from which great magical effects were supposed to emanate. In the corners lurked stuffed birds, tigers, and leopards. Pictures of terror gods looked back at the visitor, who suddenly stood in front of a mask of dried leather feared across the whole country. Among the chief iconographic motifs of the temple was the depiction of human ribcages.

At the beginning of an oracle session, the Nechung Lama is sent into a trance via all manner of ritual song and incense. After a while his eyes close, his facial muscles begin to twitch, his brow becomes dark red and glistens with sweat. The prophet god then visibly enters him, then during his trance the medium develops — and this is confirmed by photographs and western eyewitness reports — almost superhuman powers. He can bend iron swords and, although he carries a metal crown weighing over 80 pounds (!) on his head, perform a wild dance. Incomprehensible sounds come from his foaming lips. This is supposed to be a sacred language. Only once it has been deciphered by the priests can the content of the oracle message be recognized.

The deity conjured up by the Nechung Lama is called Pehar or Pedkar. However, often only his adjutant is invoked, Dorje Drakden by name. This is because a direct appearance by Pehar can be so violent that it threatens the life of his medium (the Nechung Lama). Pehar has under his command a group of five wrathful gods, who together are called the “protective wheel”. It seems sensible to make a few thoughts about this prophesying god, who has for centuries exercised such a decisive influence upon Tibetan politics and still continues to do so.

In iconographic representations, Pehar has three faces of different colors. He wears a bamboo hat which is crowned with a vajra upon his head. In his hands he holds a bow and arrow, a sword, a cleaver, and a club. His mount is a snow lion.

Pehar’s original home lay in the north of Tibet, there where in the conception of the old Tibetans (in the Gesar epic) the “devil’s country” was to be found. In earlier times he reigned as war god of the Hor Mongols. According to the sagas, this wild tribe was counted among the bitterest opponents of the pre-Buddhist Tibetans and their national hero, Gesar of Ling.

Old documents from Tunhuang describe the Hor as “flesh-eating red demons” (Stein, 1993, p. 36). Their martial king had laid waste to the Land of Snows and stolen its queen, the wife of Gesar of Ling. After terrible battles the Tibetan national hero defeated the rapacious Hors, to whom we are indebted for the word horde, and won their commitment and that of their chief god, Pehar, with an eternal oath of loyalty. Over the centuries the term Hor was then used to refer to various Mongolian tribes, including those of Genghis Khan. Hence, Pehar (the principal oracle god of the Dalai Lama) was originally a bitter arch-enemy of the Tibetans.

Where Gesar had rendered the Mongol god harmless, it was the Maha Siddha Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche) who brought Buddhism to Tibet who first succeeded in actually putting Pehar to work. The saga tells how Guru Rinpoche pressed a vajra upon the barbaric god’s head and thus magically mastered him. After this act, Pehar was able to be incorporated into the Buddhist pantheon as a servant. For seven hundred years his chief residence was the founding monastery Samye, by the construction of which he had to assist as a “forced laborer”. About 900 years later the “Great Fifth” transported him (i.e., his symbol) to Nechung in the vicinity of the Drepung monastery and advanced the former war god of the Hor to state oracle. Since, after his “Buddhization”, he did not want to be reminded of his former defeat (by the national hero, Gesar), not a single verse from the Gesar epic was allowed to be cited in the Drepung monastery or at any other location where he had stayed.

The question soon arises as to why of all gods Pehar, the former ferocious and cruel opponent of the Land of Snows, was given the delicate office of being a supernatural governmental advisor to the Tibetan “god-king”. Surely this would have sooner been the entitlement of a Bodhisattva like Avalokiteshvara or a national hero like Gesar of Ling.

With this question too, the key is to be sought in the “political theology” of the “Great Fifth”. We may recall that both the conferring of the title of Dalai Lama and the establishment of the hierarch’s secular power were the actions of the Mongolians and not of the Tibetan people. In contrast, as we have reported, in the 17th century the national forces of the country were actually gathered under the kings of Tsang and around the throne of the Karmapa (the leader of the “red” Kagyupa sect). Thus, it does not take much fantasy to be able to sketch out why Pehar was chosen as the advisor of the “yellow” Buddhist state (then represented by the Fifth Dalai Lama). It was expected of the former Mongolian god and opponent of Tibet that he tame the recalcitrant Tibetans (who supported the Karmapa). In this his interests were in complete accord with those of the “god-king”. Additionally, the “Great Fifth” himself was a descendant of an aristocratic family which traced its lineage back to the Hor Mongols. Pehar, the later state oracle, is thus a foreign deity imposed upon the Tibetan people.

It is true that the oracle god has sworn an oath of loyalty, but it is — in the lamas’ opinion — by no means ruled out that he may one day break this and unleash his full vengeance upon the Tibetans who defeated him in times gone by. He has in his own words explained to Padmasambhava what will then happen. He will destroy the houses and the fields. The children of the Land of Snows will have to endure famine and will be driven insane. The fruit of the land will be destroyed by hail and swarms of insects. The strong will be carried off and only the weak shall survive. Wars shall devastate the roof of the world. Pehar himself will interrupt the meditations of the lamas, rob their spells of their magic power, and force them to commit suicide. Brothers will rape their sisters. He will make the wisdom consorts (the mudras) of the tantra masters bad and heretical, yes, transform them into enemies of the teaching who emigrate to the lands of the unbelievers. But first he shall copulate with them. “I,” Pehar proclaims, “the lord of the temples, the stupas and scriptures, I shall possess the fair bodies of all virgins” (Sierksma, 1966, p. 165).

In the sphere of practical politics the recommendations of the Mongolian martial god have also not always been advantageous for the Tibetans. For example, he gave the Thirteenth Dalai Lama the catastrophic advice that he should attack the British army under Colonel Younghusband which led to a massacre of the Tibetan soldiers.

Current politics and the oracle system:

One would think that the Tibetans in exile would these days have distanced themselves from such a warlike deity as Pehar, who constantly threatens them with bloody acts of revenge, especially after their experiences at the hands of the Chinese occupying forces. One would further assume that, given the Kundun’s strident professions of democracy, the oracle system as such would be in decline or have even been abandoned. But the opposite is the case: in Dharamsala the divinatory arts, astrology, the interpretation of dreams, and even the drawing of lots still have a most decisive (!) influence upon the politics of the Tibetans in exile. Every (!) politically significant step is first taken once the mediums, soothsayers, and court astrologers have been consulted, every important state-political activity requires the invocation of the wrathful Mongolian god, Pehar. This tendency has increased in recent years. Today there are said to be three further mediums (who represent different deities) whose services are made use of. Among these is a young and attractive girl from an eastern province of Tibet. Some members of the community of Tibetans in exile are therefore of the opinion that the various oracles misuse His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama for their own ends and force their will upon him.

Now, how does the “god-king” see this through his own eyes? “Even some Tibetans,” we learn from the Kundun, “mostly those who consider themselves 'progressive', have misgivings about my continued use of this ancient method of intelligence gathering. But I do so for the simple reason that as I look back over the many occasions when I have asked questions of the oracle, on each one of them time has proved that his answer was correct” (Dalai Lama XIV, 1993 I, p. 312). “I not only believe in spirits, but in various kinds of spirits!”, His Holiness further admits, “... To this category belongs the state oracle Nechung (Pehar). We consider these spirits reliable, then they have a long history without any controversy in over 1000 years” (Tagesanzeiger (Switzerland), March 23, 1998). Pehar determined the point in time in which the Dalai Lama had to flee Tibet and with the statement “that the shine of the 'wish-fulfilling jewel' [one of the Dalai Lama’s names] will light up in the West” predicted the spread of Buddhism in Europe and North America. (Dalai Lama XIV, 1993a, p. 154).

Even the aggression of his oracle god is not denied by the Kundun: “His [task], in his capacity as protector and defender, is wrathful. [!] However, although our functions are similar, my relationship with Nechung is that of commander to lieutenant: I never bow down to him. It is for Nechung to bow to the Dalai Lama” (Dalai Lama XIV, 1993 I, p. 312). This statement confirms once again that from a tantric viewpoint, the politics of the Tibetans in exile is not conducted by people, but by gods. As Avalokiteshvara and the Kalachakra deity, the Dalai Lama commands the Mongolian god, Pehar, to make predictions about the future. [1] The Kundun’s comment in this quotation that his functions and the “functions” of Pehar are “similar” is ambiguous. Does he want to allude to his own “wrathful aspect” here? On September 4, 1987 a new Nechung medium was enthroned in Dharamsala, since the old one had died three years before. His official confirmation was attained following a demonstrative trance session at which the Kundun, cabinet members of the Tibetan government in exile and the parliamentary chairman were present. About two months later another séance was held before the Council of Ministers and a number of high lamas. This illustrious assembly of the highest ranking representatives of the Tibetan people shows how the political prophecies and instructions of the god Pehar are taken seriously not just by the Dalai Lama but also by the “people’s representatives” of the Tibetans in exile. Thus, in political decisions neither reason nor the majority of votes, nor even public opinion have the last word, but rather the Mongolian oracle god.

Dorje Shugden—a threat to the Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s life?

Since 1996 at the latest, Pehar and his Nechung medium have met with embittered competition from among the Tibetan’s own ranks. This is a matter of the tutelary and divinatory deity, Dorje Shugden. In pictures, Dorje Shugden is depicted riding grim-faced through a lake of boiling blood upon a snow lion. It is primarily conservative circles among the Gelugpas (the “Yellow Hats”) who have grouped around this figure. They demand the exclusive supremacy of the yellow sect (the Gelugpas) over the other Buddhist schools.

This traditional political position of the Shugden worshippers is not acceptable to the Fourteenth Dalai Lama (although he himself is a member of the yellow sect) because he is working towards an integration of all Tibet’s religious orientations, including the Bonpos. With the same resolve as the “Great Fifth” he sees a one-off chance to multiply the power of his own institution in a collective movement involving all schools. It is therefore not surprising that even the early history of Dorje Shugden features an irreconcilable confrontation between the protective god and the Fifth Dalai Lama, which appears to be repeating itself today.

What took place on that occasion, and what has been the history of the recalcitrant Shugden? The “pan-Buddhist” program of the “Great Fifth”, but especially his occult tendency towards the Nyingmapa sect, led the abbot of the powerful Drepung (Yellow Hat) monastery, Drakpa Gyaltsen, to organize a rebellion against the ruler in the Potala. The conspiracy was discovered and was not carried out.

Image
The two oracle gods at daggers drawn: Shugden [l] and Nechung [r]

Most probably at the command of the in such matters unscrupulous god-king, the rebel was murdered first. Whilst the corpse was being burned on a pyre, a threatening cloud which resembled a huge black hand, the hand of the avenger, was formed by the ascending smoke. After his death the murdered lama, Drakpa Gyaltsen, transformed into a martial spirit and took on the fearsome name of Dorje Shugden, which means the “Bellower of the Thunderbolt”. He continued to pursue his political goals from the beyond.

Shortly after his death — the legend reports — all manner of unhappy incidents befell the country. Towns and villages were afflicted with sicknesses. The Tibetan government constantly made wrong decisions, even the Fifth Dalai Lama was not spared. Every time he wanted to have a meal in the middle of the day, his victim (Dorje Shugden) manifested himself as an invisible evil force, up-ended the dinner tables and damaged “His Holiness’s possessions”. [2] Ultimately it proved possible to subdue the vengeful spirit through all manner of rituals, but he did not therefore remain inactive.

With the assistance of a human medium, through whom he still today communicates with his priests, the abbot who had transformed into a protective god organized (from the beyond, so to speak) a oppositional grouping within the Yellow Hat (Gelugpa) order, who wanted (and still want) to enforce the absolute supremacy of their order by magical and practical political means. For example, at the beginning of the 20th century the invocation of Shugden by the powerful Yellow Hat lama, Pabongka Rinpoche, was used to suppress the Nyingmapas and Kagyupas in eastern Tibet. An outright ritual war was fought out: “... whenever this [Shugden] ritual was practiced in the Gelugpa monasteries, the surrounding monasteries of the other schools [performed] certain practices so as to check the negative forces again” (Kagyü Life 21-1996, p. 34).

Nonetheless the “reactionary” Shugden movement constantly gained in popularity, especially among members of the Tibetan nobility too. Later, this “sub-sect” of the Yellow Hats came to understand itself as a secret nest of resistance against the Chinese occupation force, since the traditional protectors of Tibet (Palden Lhamo or Pehar, for example) had allegedly betrayed and left the country. One of the chief representatives of the secret conservative alliance (Trijang Rinpoche) was a teacher of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, who himself initiated his divine pupil into the Shugden cult.

The reverence for Shugden is likewise high among the Tibetans in exile, and is well distributed worldwide (everywhere where Gelugpas are to be found). A fifth, in some other versions even two-thirds, of the yellow sect are said to pray to the reactionary dharmapala (tutelary spirit). But in the meantime the movement has also spread among Westerners. These are primarily from the New Kadampa Tradition (NKT), an English-based grouping around the lama Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. The declaration of exclusion from his former monastery says of the latter that, “this demon with broken commitments, Kelsang Gyatso, burns with the flame of unbearable spite toward the unsurpassed omniscient XIV Dalai Lama, the only staff of life of religious people in Tibet, whose activities and kindness equal the sky” (Lopez, 1998, p. 195). His supporters provide online information about their conflict with Dharamsala under the name of the Shugden Supporters Community (SSC).

The Kundun and Shugden:

It is true that in the year 1976 the Fourteenth Dalai Lama had already declared that he did not wish for his person to associated in any way with Dorje Shugden, especially because the worship of this “reactionary” spirit had come into conflict with three other dharmapalas (tutelary gods) which he revered highly, the oracle god Pehar, the terrible Palden Lhamo, and the protective god Dharmaraja. Rumors report of a dream of the Kundun in which Shugden and Pehar had fought with one another. On a number of occasions Pehar prophesied via the Nechung Lama that Shugden was attempting to undermine the sovereignty of the Kundun and thus deliver Tibet into the hands of the Chinese. The Mongolian god received unexpected support in his accusations through a young attractive female medium by name of Tsering Chenma, who, during the preparations for a Kalachakra initiation (!) in Lahaul Spiti announced that 30 members of the Dorje Shugden Society would attack the Dalai Lama in the course of the initiation. Thereupon the Kundun’s security staff searched all present for weapons. Nothing was found and not a single representative of the Shugden society was in attendance (Burns, Newsgroup 1).

Yet another, female (!) oracle was questioned about the Shugden affair. During the session and in the presence of the Dalai Lama, the woman is supposed to have fallen upon a monk and whilst she tore at his clothes and shook his head cried out: “This Lama is bad, he is following Dorje Shugden, take him out, take him out” (Burns, Newsgroup 9).

The majority of the Tibetans in exile were naturally not informed about such incidents, which were more or less played out behind closed doors, and were thus most surprised at the sharpness and lack of compromise with which the Kundun repeated his criticisms of the Shugden movement in 1996.

On March 21, during the initiation into a particular tantra (Hayagriva) he turned to those present with the following words: “I have recently said several prayers for the well-being of our nation and religion. It has become fairly clear that Dolgyal [another name for Shugden] is a spirit of the dark forces. ... If any of you intend to continue to invoke Dolgyal [Shugden], it would be better for you to stay away from this authorization, to stand up and leave this place. It is unfitting if you continue to sit here. It will be of no use to you. It will in contrast have the effect of shortening the life of the Gyalwa Rinpoche [of the Dalai Lama, that is, his own life]. Which is not good. If there are, however, some among you who want that Gyalwa Rinpoche [he himself] should soon die, then just stay” (Kagyü Life 21-1996, p. 35).

At another location the Kundun announced his fear that Shugden was seeking to spoil all his pleasure in life via psychic terror: “You should not think that dangers for my life come only from someone armed with a knife, a gun or a bomb. Such an event is extremely unlikely. But dangers to my life may arise if my advice is constantly spurned, causing me to feel discouraged and to see no further purpose in life” (Kashag, HPI 11).

Such statements by His Holiness may imply that the Dalai Lama (and behind him the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara) is very fearful of this vengeful spirit, which induced the Indian Associated Press to make the mocking comment that, “a 350-year old ghost is haunting the Dalai Lama” (Associated Press, August 21, 1997, 2:54 a.m.). At any rate, the god-king’s security service which protects his residence in Dharamsala in the meantime consists of 100 police officers.

The following statement by the Kundun has been leaked from a secret meeting of influential exiled Tibetan politicians and high lamas which the Dalai Lama called to discuss the Shugden case in Caux (Switzerland): “Everyone who is affiliated with the Tibetan Society of Ganden Phodrang government (Tibetan Government) should relinquish ties with Dhogyal (Shugden). This is necessary since it poses danger to the religious and temporal situation in Tibet. As for foreigners, it makes no difference to us if they walk with their feet up and their head down. We have taught Dharma to them, not they to us. ... We should do it [carry out this ban] in such a way to ensure that in future generations not even the name of Dholgyal [Shugden] is remembered” (Burns, Newsgroup 1).

Numerous Tibetans who had in the past been initiated into the Shugden cult by the personal teacher of the Kundun, Trijang Rinpoche, and believed that through this they enjoyed His Holiness’s favor, saw themselves all at once betrayed after the ban and felt deeply disappointed. For the sophisticated Dalai Lama, however, the sectarian position of the “yellow fundamentalists” and “sectarians” was no longer bearable and quite obviously a significant obstacle on his mission to compel all sects to accept his absolute control and thus limit the supremacy of the Gelugpas. “This Shugden spirit”, the Kundun has said, “has for over 360 years created tensions between the Gelug tradition and the other schools. ... Some may [because of the ban] have lost trust in me. But at the same time numerous followers of the Kagyupa or Nyingma schools have recognized that the Dalai Lama is pursuing a truly non-sectarian course. I believe this Shugden worship has been like an agonizing boil for 360 years. Now like a modern surgeon I have undertaken a small operation” (Tagesanzeiger (Switzerland), March 23, 1998).

He then also branded the Shugden cult as “idolatry” and as a “relapse into shamanism” (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 1997, No. 158, p. 10). On March 30, 1996 the ban on the worship of Shugden was pronounced by governmental decree. The “mouthpiece” of the Kundun in the USA, Robert Thurman, emotionally denounced the “sectarians” and publicly disparaged them as the “Taliban of Buddhism”.

In the meantime the accusations coming out of Dharamsala against the Shugden worshippers fill many pages: they were cooperating with the Chinese and received funding from Beijing; they were fouling their own nest; they were playing “Russian roulette”, because they dragged the whole exile Tibetan case (and thereby themselves) into the depths. They were trying to kill the Kundun.

The accusations made by the Shugden worshippers:

On the other hand, the Shugden followers, whose leader has meanwhile been officially declared to be an “enemy of the people”, speak of a true witch hunt directed against them which has already been in progress for a number of months. They accuse the Dalai Lama of a flagrant breach of human rights and the right to freedom of religion and do not shy from drawing comparisons with the Chinese occupation force and the Catholic Inquisition. Houses belonging to the sect are said to have been illegally searched by followers of the Kundun, masked bands of thugs to have attacked defenseless Shugden believers, images of and altars to the protective god to have been deliberately burned and thrown into rivers. Lists of the names of Dorje Shugden practitioners ("enemies of the people”) are said to have been drawn up and pictures of them and their children to have been hung out in public buildings so as to defame them. It is said that followers of the protective deity have been completely refused entry to the offices of the government in exile and that the children of their families no longer have access to the official schools. Following a resolution of the so-called Tibetan Cholsum Convention (held between August 27 and 31, 1998) Shugden followers were unable to travel internationally or draw pensions, state child assistance, or social security payments. In it, Tibetans are forbidden to read the writings of the cult and they were called upon to burn them.

A militant underground organization with the name of the “secret society for the destruction of internal and external enemies of Tibet” threatened to murder two young lineage holders, the lamas Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche (13-years-old) [3] and Song Rinpoche (11-years-old), who (under the influence of their teacher) performed rites in honor of Dorje Shugden: “… we will destroy your life and your activities” (Swiss Television, SF1, January 6, 1998). In a document from this group tabled by Shugden followers, it says: “Anyone who goes against the policy of the government must be singled out one-pointedly, opposed and given the death penalty. ... As for the reincarnations of Trijang and Song Rinpoche, if they do not stop practicing Dhogyal [Shugden] and contradict with the word of H.H. the Dalai Lama, not only will we not be able to respect them, but their life and their activities will suffer destruction. This is our first warning” (Burns, Newsgroup 1). Whilst a Western television crew were filming, a Tibetan monk who cooperated with the reporters received a death threat: “... in seven days you will be dead!” (Swiss Television, SF1, January 6, 1998).

In addition Dharamsala has exerted vehement psychological pressure on Buddhist centers in the West and forbidden them from performing Shugden rituals. In a word — the worshippers of the protective god had become the “Jews of Buddhism” (Newsweek, April 28, 1997, p. 26).

In London, where the sect has around 3000 members, there were protest demonstrations at which pictures of the Kundun were held high with the slogan, “Your Smiles Charm, Your Actions Harm”. He was referred to here as a “merciless dictator, who oppresses his people more than the Chinese do” (Kagyü Life 21, 1996, p. 34).

However, in an official communiqué from May 14, 1996, the government in exile denied all accusations. In contrast — they announced that death threats had been sent from Shugden to the offices of His Holiness and the Tibetan Women's Association. “If there comes division among prominent persons in the Yellow Hat Sect, there will be bloodshed in the monasteries and settlements across India”, one of the threatening letters is said to have stated (Newsweek, April 28, 1997, p. 26; retranslation). Both sides clearly fear that their lives are threatened by the other side.

All these mutual fears, accusations, and slander in the battle between the two oracle gods reached their climax in the ritual murder of the lama Lobsang Gyatso on February 4, 1997 which we have described above. Lobsang Gyatso was considered a special friend of the Dalai Lama and a pronounced opponent of the Shugden sect. A few days after the murder a press release from the government in exile coursed around the world in which Dorje Shugden followers were said to certainly be responsible for the murder. There was talk of confessions and arrests. This opinion remains current among a broad public to this day.

As evidence, among other things a letter to the murder victim (Lobsang Gyatso) was cited in which (it was said) the secretary of the Dorje Shugden Society had threatened the abbot with murder. Tashi Wangdu, a minister of the Tibetan government in exile, held this document, written in Tibetan, in his hand and showed it again on January 25, 1998 in Swiss Television (on the “Sternstunde”[Star Hour] program). However, this turned out to be a deliberate and very blatant attempt to mislead, when the Tibetan document, which was later translated, does not contain a single word of a murder threat. Rather, it contains a polite invitation to Lobsang Gyatso to discuss “theological” questions with the Dorje Shugden Society in Delhi (Gassner, 1999).

But this document was enough to arrest all known followers of the protective god (Shugden) in Delhi and illegally imprison them. However, they denied participating in the crime in any form whatsoever. [4] Indeed, despite interrogations lasting weeks by the Indian criminal police, nothing has been proven. The evidence is so meager that it is most likely that the crime was committed by another party. The matter was also seen so by a court in Dharamsala, which negated any connection between the Dorje Shugden Society and the murders of February 4.

For this reason, there are claims from the Shugden followers that the Dalai Lama’s circle tried to pin the blame on them in order to muzzle and marginalize them. In light of the power-political ambitions and relative strength of the sect — it is said to have over 20,000 active members in India alone — this version also makes sense. Some western worshippers of the protective god even go so far as to claim that a higher order from the Kundun lay behind the deed. Until the murderers are convicted, a good criminologist must keep his or her eye on all of these possibilities.

Reactions of the Tibetan parliament:

Within the Tibetan parliament in exile, the incidents have led to great nervousness and high tension. A resolution was passed demanding that “in essence government departments, organizations, associations, monasteries and their branches under the direction of the exile Tibetan government should abide by the ban against worship of Dhogyal” (Burns, Newsgroup 1).

In the further reactions of the people’s representatives one can read just how risky the whole matter is seen to be. Hence, during the parliamentary session of September 20, 1997 one of the members established that “an unprecedented amount of literature is being published everywhere that criticizes the Dalai Lama and belittles the Tibetan Exile Government” (Burns, Newsgroup 1). This is “extremely dangerous” and in the principal monasteries there was open talk of a schism. During the parliamentary session the government was strongly criticized for not having done anything to treat the Shugden affair as an internal Tibetan matter, but rather to have told the whole world about it, thus bringing it to the attention of an international public. We have to conclude from the committed discussions of the parliamentary members that the power and potential influence of the Shugden followers are actually more significant than one would have thought from the previous official statements out of Dharamsala.

On the third day of the session the situation in parliament had reached such a dead end that there seemed to be nothing more to say. What do the representatives of Tibetans in exile do in such a situation? — They consult the state oracle! It is not the members of parliament as the representatives of the people’s will but rather the oracle god Pehar who decides which course the government is to steer in the controversy surrounding the recalcitrant Dorje Shugden. The grotesqueness of the situation can hardly be topped, since Pehar and Shugden — as we learn from the writings of both parties — are the most bitter of enemies. How, then, is the Mongolian god (Pehar) supposed to provide an objective judgment about his arch-enemy (Shugden)? Indeed, it was Pehar, who in 1996 prophesied for the Dalai Lama that his life and hence the fate of Tibet wee endangered by the Shugden cult. In contrast , the Shugden oracle announced that the Kundun has been falsely advised by Pehar for years. Hence what the state oracle consulted by parliament would say was clear in advance. The advice was to combat the Shugden followers with uncompromising keenness.

This interesting case is thus a matter of a war between two oracle gods who seek control over the politics of Tibet. No other example since the flight of the Dalai Lama (in 1959) has so clearly revealed to the public that “gods” are at work behind the Tibetan state, the realpolitik of the Kundun, and the power groupings of the society of Tibetans in exile. One may well be completely skeptical about such entities, but one cannot avoid acknowledging that the ruling elite and the subjects of the Lamaist state are guided by just such an ancient world view. How these occult struggles are to be reconciled with the untiringly repeated professions of belief in democracy is difficult to comprehend from a western-oriented way of thinking.

Dharamsala is completely aware that antidemocratic methods must arouse disquiet in the West. For example, in contrast to before, since the mid-eighties reports about the pronouncements of oracles no longer play a large role in the Tibetan Review (the exile Tibetans’ most important foreign-language organ of the press). Only since the “Shugden affair” (1996) has the excessive use of oracle mediums in the politics of the Tibetans in exile been rediscovered and become known worldwide. In monastic circles it is openly joked that the Kundun employs more oracles than ministers. “Favorites and sorcerers manipulate the sovereign”, it says in a Spanish magazine, with “demons and deities fighting to control people's minds ...” (Más Allá de la Ciencia, No. 103, 1997).

Nevertheless, the Kundun has succeeded amazingly well in marginalizing the Shugden cult internationally and branding it as medieval superstition. For example, the German news magazine, Der Spiegel, which normally takes an extremely critical stance towards religious matters, was prepared to blindly take up the official version of the Shugden story from Dharamsala: the Shugden followers, Der Spiegel reported, were responsible for two (!) murders and their flight could be traced to China and the Chinese secret service (Spiegel, 16/1998, p. 119). Nearly all western media stereotypically repeat that the ritual murderers came from the ranks of the protective god (for example, Time Magazine Asia, September 28, 1998).

One of the arguments of the Shugden followers in this “battle of the gods” is the claim that the Dalai Lama is engaged in selling his own country to the Chinese. He (they argue) is not acting in the interests of his people at all, since in his Strasbourg Declaration he renounced the national sovereignty of Tibet as his goal.

It is not possible for us to form a final judgment about such a charge; however, what we can in any case assume is the fact that the Mongolian war god Pehar (the Nechung oracle) can have no interest in the (well-being of the)Tibetans and their nation, against whom he in former times grimly struggled as a Hor Mongol and who then enslaved him. Of course, the national interests of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama could also collide with his worldwide ambitions concerning the spread of Tantric Buddhism. We shall return to this topic in our article on his politics towards China.

If — as the tantric belief maintains- deities are pulling the strings behind the scenes of “human” politics, then a direct consequence of this is that magic (as an invocatory art of gaining influence over gods and demons) must be counted among the “political” activities par excellence. Magic as statecraft is therefore a Tibetan specialty. Let us take a closer look at this “portfolio”.

_______________

Notes:

[1] Here we ought to ask how a lesser deity like Pehar is able to predict the future at all for the hierarchically superior Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara and the incarnated time god (Kalachakra) who are embodied in the Dalai Lama.

[2] According to statements by the followers of Shugden, the Fifth Dalai Lama is supposed to have later changed his mind and prayed to the protective deity. He is even said to have molded the first statue of Dorje Shugden with his own hands and have composed prayers to the protective god. This statue is said to currently be found in Nepal.

[3] Trijang Rinpoche is the reincarnation of the deceased lama who previously initiated the Fourteenth Dalai Lama into the Shugden cult whilst his teacher.

[4] Up until now (February 1998) the police claim to have identified two of the six murderers. These have slipped over the border into Nepal, however.
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