Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this nearly three-hour initiation ceremony, Kyabje Rinpoche confers the empowerment of Avalokiteśvara while establishing foundational refuge vows for both newcomers and those restoring lapsed practice. He explains the preliminaries of secret mantra ritual and why bodhisattva vows must precede empowerment. The core teaching covers deity yoga—visualizing oneself as the deity to transform ordinary perception—and how mantra practice differs from the perfection-path approach. The empowerment unfolds in three stages (body, speech, and mind) with specific visualizations and blessings. He concludes with practical guidance: daily recitation of Om Mani Padme Hum and the mantra’s symbolism of compassion (method) and emptiness (wisdom). For practitioners receiving initiation for the first time and those renewing previous commitments.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01-700101_1003-01.mp3
UUID: 8f1fc6e8-569d-4752-a0c6-f5aa63ab3260
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Chenrezig
Date: 1970-01-01
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~3,077
So now I’ve done it. So at present, Rinpoche will confer the empowerment or the subsequent permission of the great compassionate one. This is an empowerment of a secret mantra. Therefore, it is necessary to dispel the obstructions or the interferences which can arise and this is done through offering torma initially and requesting the interfering spirits to leave by a combination of peaceful and wrathful deeds at at first or by wrathful deeds alone if they refuse to do so. One then offers mandala and sates the human and nonhuman entities.
And today, Rinpoche will impart the initiation of Avalokiteśvara, the greatly compassionate one. To receive the subsequent permission or initiation, one must have bodhisattva vows. However, to have bodhisattva vows, one needs the ground or the foundation of refuge vows. And therefore, even though refuge is presented in a cursory fashion in the text, Rinpoche will represent it for us here, even though most of us will have refuge. Those of us who have refuge will strengthen their refuge and those whose refuge has degenerated will restore it.
What is meant by refuge? Many people go for refuge in beings which cannot provide lasting protection, such as Indra, Brahma, the sun, fire gods, and so forth. These beings cannot protect us and themselves. One must search for a true refuge, which is a refuge which leads us on the path to liberation. This is the Buddha, which is a teacher of such a path to liberation, the Dharma, which is the actual path leading to liberation, and the Sangha, which are the friends on the path to liberation.
And what do we need protection from? We need protection from the afflictions. So with the motivation of abandoning afflictions and attaining unequaled enlightenment, we should generate the motivation to take refuge. So to take refuge, one must take refuge vows. And therefore, at present, we must imagine that the statue of the Buddha behind Rinpoche is really Buddha, that the texts which are here are really the Dharma, and that the Sangha which is present is the true Sangha.
So you can offer three prostrations at present and do as Rinpoche does without standing up. And then we request the vows, and this in Tibetan is which means teacher, please heed. And at this point, we give our name, whatever our names is. Please recite after. Okay?
You have received refuge vows. You should now generate joy and think my life is meaningful. We should meditate on this. You have now received these vows. Rinpoche will say, and from your side, you must answer, means this is good.
We have now received refuge vows and have become good Buddhists. And as a result of this, we should first take strong refuge and not take refuge in non-Buddhist deities. Secondly, we should not associate with non-Buddhist practitioners but should have faith with the Sangha. And thirdly, since full enlightenment is attained in dependence on sentient beings, we should not harm beings. And therefore, we must have faith, veneration, and devotion to the Buddha, our teacher.
We must read and practice Dharma text, and we should have respect for the Sanghas who are our helpers on the path. And having taken refuge, we must practice the precepts of refuge. The precepts of refuge are to abandon the 10 non virtuous deeds. The three of the body which are killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct. The four of speech which are lying, harsh words, divisive speech and gossip.
And the three of the mind, are covetousness, ill will and wrong view. And we should abandon them because they lead to lower rebirth and suffering. On the other hand, we should practice renouncing these 10 non virtues. So from his side, Rinpoche has completed all the preliminaries such as having the mandala created, creating the tormas, blessing the vase, and so forth. From our side, we have completed the basic preliminaries, such as making prostrations, taking refuge.
At present, we must offer a concise mandala. And the initiation of Avalokiteśvara here is an initiation of secret mantras. So in this context, one must explain four terms. Secret mantra, the Vajrayāna or the path of the Vajra. The first of these terms, secret, refers to the fact that secret mantra practices and initiations must be kept secret in the same way as worldly beings have their own secrets which they never tell others.
Likewise, our practice of secret mantra must be hidden from everybody. It must be kept within our hearts. In particular, one should never talk about one’s practice or one’s initiations to people who have not received initiation or to people who have received initiation and whose vows have declined, decayed. If one does, one’s own destroyed from the root. And in as much as vows are the foundation on which one attains both liberation and full enlightenment, they are the cause of liberation and full enlightenment, that cause is destroyed.
So we have destroyed instantaneously the cause for our attaining liberation and full enlightenment. And the second term to be explained is mantra. The Sanskrit term mantra actually refers to protecting the mind. Protecting the mind from what? From ordinary appearances and conceptions.
Generally speaking, everything we see and all the persons we see in this room arise or are perceived as a result of karma and klesha, of karma and afflictions. For in the perfection vehicle, the main cause for circling in cyclic existence is the apprehension of a self and self-cherishing. This is not the case in secret mantra. In secret mantra, the main cause are ordinary appearances and conceptions which bind us to cyclic existence, and therefore it is ordinary appearances and conceptions which have to be countered. These are countered through training oneself in visualizing the spiritual teacher as Avalokiteśvara with four arms, the environment which surrounds us as a celestial mansion, the mandalas and so forth as Avalokiteśvara’s mandalas.
And in doing this, we can eliminate ordinary conceptions and appearances. We have, therefore, to visualize ourselves if we are male as heroes and if we are females as heroines or Dakinis. The third term which is to be explained is Vajra. So Vajra means the inseparable union of bliss, excuse me, the inseparable union of the method and the wisdom aspect of the path. Now, in the Pāramitāyāna, the vehicle of perfections, the method aspect of the path refers to compassion and bodhicitta and the wisdom aspect of the path refers to that wisdom which realizes emptiness, the profound.
In the perfection vehicle, all these can be practiced together, and all bodhicitta can increase the realization of emptiness and the realization of emptiness can enhance bodhicitta, they can never be one. On the other hand, in Secret Mantra, there is an actual fusion of method and wisdom within one mind and within the three lower classes of tantra, which are Kriyā, Caryā and Yoga tantra, this fusion operates as follows. One has from the standpoint of method that mind which meditates on what is known as the circle of the deity and from the standpoint of wisdom, that mind meditating on emptiness. Now the circle of the deity refers to one’s meditating on ones as on oneself as the deity. And in this context, it is actually the physical component of the mind which is meditating on emptiness which arises as the deity one is meditating upon.
Therefore, in one mind, both the wisdom and the method aspects of the path are simultaneously accumulated. And one accumulates through meditating on oneself as a deity with the mind meditating on emptiness, simultaneously the collections of wisdom and of merit. So we will now request from the teacher who is visualized as Avalokiteśvara in actuality. There’s a statue of Avalokiteśvara here. The teacher is seen as Avalokiteśvara with four arms.
So request. Generally speaking, Ārya Avalokiteśvara is the summary of the compassion of the Buddhas of all 10 directions and therefore his blessings are superior to that of other beings. Likewise, specifically, he is the uncommon protector of the land of snows and therefore, the blessings will be inordinately swift. And this is the case because Ārya Avalokiteśvara chose Tibet, the land of snows, as his uncommon field for taming beings. And as I said, wishing to listen and so forth entreat three times.
So listening here refers to listening to the words of the teacher then and so forth refer refers to thinking about the meaning and meditating about the content. And in And therefore, entreat three times refer to refers to entreating three times while visualizing as was explained. And the text moves onwards. Please, think as follows. This is in keeping with the previous entreaty.
And the initiation text moves onwards. It is both hard to find and once found it is a combination of leisure and endowments, which is of great meaning. We have obtained a precious human rebirth. It is hard to find, as is said, because the causes necessary to give rise to a precious human rebirth are difficult.
And this is a precious human rebirth, as is said in our text, if it is used to practice virtue and to abandon non virtue. On the other hand, if it is used to practice non virtue and to abandon virtue, it is the worst of rebirths. And therefore practice well this precious Dharma which was uttered by the Buddha, which was ascertained by the great pandits and which was experienced by the yogis. Having obtained a precious human rebirth, we have to take its essence, otherwise it is meaningless. The essence of a human, precious human rebirth is the practice of Dharma.
And among these dharmas, the yoga of Ārya Avalokiteśvara is the one with the greatest blessings, and it is this one whose subsequent permission we have requested. And to practice the yoga of Avalokiteśvara, one must have received the subsequent permission or the initiation. You have requested it. This is excellent. And at present, since it is necessary to receive the Bodhisattva vows, to receive this empowerment, one must generate both aspiring and engaging Bodhisattva vows.
Now in our case, it is open to question whether we can generate the vows of engaging Bodhisattva and before taking them, it is important that we examine carefully whether we can actually engage in the six activities of the Bodhisattvas, the six perfections which are giving, ethics, enthusiasm, patience, concentration and meditation or not. If we do not engage in them, we will not have held the vows. Without these in turn, there is no possibility to attain full enlightenment. As is said in the Lama Chöpa, in the verse which says, bless me to protect all three categories of ethics and specifically that ethics of the sons of the conquerors, What is being primarily referred to there is engaging in the engaging bodhisattva vows. In our initiation text, there is a stanza, the stanza of refuge.
I take refuge in the triple gem and confess individually all faults. I rejoice in the virtue of beings and wish to attain full enlightenment. This alone cannot confer engaging Bodhisattva vows. Therefore, when we recite it, we must strongly be convinced that we are taking engaging Bodhisattva vows. The first verse is I take refuge in the triple gem.
To take these vows, we must initially have a refuge, and we therefore take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Then we have the verse, I I confess my sins individually. To take bodhisattva vows, one must initially cleanse the mind. Otherwise, it is not possible to receive the vows. And then the third verse, I rejoice in the virtue of beings is for the sake of eliminating interferences and attracting favorable conditions through accumulating huge stores of merit in rejoicing in the virtue of the five categories of beings which include hearers, solitary realizers and bodhisattvas.
And the final verse, I will attain Buddhahood full enlightenment is an attainment of that state in which all attainments have been attained and all objects of abandonment have been abandoned, not for one’s own sake, but for the sake of all sentient beings. So let us recite this three times. Okay. Rejoice at present in the thought that we have received at last Bodhisattva vows when we may not have received them at any point in previous lives. And at present, we enter the actual body of the initiation.
This is subdivided into three, the subsequent permissions of body, speech, and mind in the same same way as the Buddha has body, speech, and mind. The first is that of body. Please repeat after. Light radiates. It impacts the deity generated in front, which which is to say the deities on the mandala, then from them, light radiates in all 10 directions.
It invites the Buddhas of the 10 directions hither, they come and dissolving into him, they become inseparable from him. At this point, the mantra is recited. We have now obtained the subsequent permission of the body of Avalokiteśvara. We have also purified all of the sins and obstructions accumulated through our body, and we have received the permission to meditate on ourselves as Avalokiteśvara, which previously we did not have. So we recite with Rinpoche to receive the Jinang, the initiation.
So recite with Rinpoche in keeping with the Tantric tradition as follows. Then visualizing Khensur Rinpoche as Avalokiteśvara and in his heart the syllable Hrīḥ surrounded by Om Mani Padme Hum. One imagines that from the right nostril of Khensur Rinpoche, a mantra in the nature of light comes forth. It enters within our left nostril, descends into our heart and settles as Om Mani Padme Hum at our heart, which is of the color of light like a pearl. And when Rinpoche recites three times, imagine this and recite with him.
So Rinpoche will recite three times. We recite three times. Then we recite one full rosary of manis. And at present, the mind initiation is or has the following visualizations. One visualizes that rays of light pervading the 10 directions directions emanate from the heart of the guru inseparable with Avalokiteśvara and from the Avalokiteśvara’s generated in front.
They draw to oneself the all the blessings of the mind of all of the victors and their sons, in the form of the letters Hrīḥ and of lotuses, which are the left hand implement of Avalokiteśvara. They dissolve within us and we ourselves dissolve into light and become empty. We then become one, our minds and those of Ārya Avalokiteśvara become inseparable and of one taste, and we generate the firm conviction that we have attained the dharmakaya. And at present, we imagine that we have obtained the initiation of mind that we have thereby purified all of the sins and obscurations which are accumulated by the mind, and that our mind has become one with the mind of Avalokiteśvara And at present, having obtained the initiation of Avalok iteshvara from now onwards, we must abandon all of the non virtuous deeds of the three doors, and we must practice meditating on the body of Avalokiteśvara, putting effort in making offerings, recite the six letter mantra, the Mani of Avalokiteśvara, and put effort in the meditations on the inseparable wisdom of the profound and the clear. And at present, we must keep all of the pledges and abstain from all and protect, all the vows.
The pledges refer to the positive component or what is to be practiced. The vows refer to the negative component or what is to be abstained from. Here, there are 18 root Bodhisattva vows, 46 branch vows, which are to be protected. If we do so, then we can attain full enlightenment. If we do not do so, then we will not.
At present, having received this initiation, our practice is from the standpoint of the body to abstain from evil deeds, which refers to non virtue, and also to engage in offerings. From the standpoint of the speech, it is to recite, and from the standpoint of the mind, it is to engage in the yoga of the inseparable practice of the profound and the clear. So there are those who had dark thoughts and who were very prone to anger. Then after receiving this initiation, we should recite the Manis, the mantras of Avalokiteśvara and as a result of this, the blessings will come swiftly and we will attain full enlightenment. And having drunk the water of the initiation, we must imagine that our inner non virtues are purified and then we will receive the blessings.
And we will recite from today the mantra of Avalokiteśvara, Om Mani Padme Hum and we have to understand therefore the meaning of this mantra. The meaning is as follows. The first syllable Om is composed of three components in Tibetan o, r and ma, which symbolize respectively our body, speech and mind, as well as the result of the purification of our body, speech and mind, which is the body, speech and mind of a fully enlightened being. The following syllables, Mani and Pedme symbolize respectively: Mani, the jewel which is held in Avalokiteśvara’s right hand, which represents the method aspect of the path and therefore here bodhicitta And Padme is the lotus which is held in Avalokiteśvara’s left hand, which symbolizes the correct view, that view of the emptiness which realizes, which is the emptiness of true inherent existence of our aggregates. Hum is symbolized by the lotus which is held between both hands of Avalokiteśvara and it represents the inseparable union of method and wisdom, which is the means for us to progress onwards.
Now generally speaking, in the lower three tantras, this inseparable union is an inseparable union in the context of a wisdom of the profound and the clear, whereas in the context of highest yoga tantra, it is that wisdom of the union of bliss and emptiness. Therefore, we should recite at least one rosary of Manis every day and then as many more as we can, since as a result of this we will be healthy, happy, our minds will become pacified, and we will make numerous good friends. So recite after Rinpoche at the end of the initiation, I will do as you say. Okay. So we will offer a small a shorter mandala of gratitude.
Key terms in this teaching
- bodhisattva jang chub sem pa (Tib)
- One who possesses bodhicitta. LYWA
- bodhisattva vows chang sem dom pa (Tib)
- The vows taken when one enters the bodhisattva path. LYWA
- mandala khyil khor (Tib)
- A circular diagram symbolic of the entire universe. The purified environment of a tantric deity; the diagram or painting representing this. LYWA
- mantra ngag (Tib)
- Literally, mind protection. Mantras are Sanskrit syllables usually recited in conjunction with the practice of a particular meditational deity and embody the qualities of that deity. LYWA
- Paramitayana Pharchin thegpa (Tib)
- The Perfection Vehicle, another name for Bodhisattvayana or Sutrayana; the non-tantric Mahayana path. LYWA
- prostrations chag tsel (Tib)
- The act of showing respect to the objects of refuge, the Guru and the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha; the first of the seven-limb practice and one of the preliminary practices. LYWA
- torma balimta (Skt)
- An offering cake used in tantric rituals. In Tibet, tormas were usually made of tsampa, but other edibles such as biscuits and so forth will suffice. LYWA
- Yoga Tantra näljor gyi gyü (Tib)
- The third of four classes of Buddhist tantra, literally meaning "union" due to the increased emphasis on internal activities compared with the previous two tantras. LYWA
Definitions adapted from the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive glossary, as taught in the Gelug tradition.