Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 48-minute teaching, Choedak introduces the psychology and practice of Vajrayāna Buddhism by exploring what it means to be a suitable disciple and vessel for authentic transmission. He opens with the classical image of a pot with three defects—being inverted, leaking, and dirty—and explains how receptivity, clear comprehension, and freedom from prejudice are essential prerequisites for learning. He then moves into detailed instruction on initiation as the gateway to tantric practice, describing it not as a mere ritual but as a death-and-rebirth ceremony in which the guru uses visualization and meditation to introduce your true nature and awaken dormant potential. Choedak illustrates this with vivid examples, including the story of a shepherd boy whose intense karmic connection to his teacher allowed him to receive genuine transformation during the ceremony. He concludes by emphasizing that foundation practices—refuge, prostrations, Vajrasattva, mandala offering, and guru yoga—are non-negotiable prerequisites; without them, advanced yogas remain inaccessible. Pitched at serious practitioners ready to understand the architecture of tantric training.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 05 VP.mp3
UUID: c37f7732-05f0-4e75-9443-b1e7c0266c2d
Teacher: Choedak
Collection: Intro to Vajrayāna Psychology (Choedak)
Date: 1987 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~6,593
This jealousy mind never enabled him to see any quality in the Buddha, and therefore, he he after having, you know, really say these bad things, disparage Buddha, he left. And Ānanda, who is another cousin of Buddha, was so shocked to see this whole drama, melodrama of Buddha and his cousin. And Ānanda said, Buddha, what’s what’s going to be the coming consequences of your cousin? Well, this is something I can’t believe. And he said he said, oh, that’s quite interesting, but he will die in a week.
Yeah. I think he will die in a week due to poisoning. Oh, this cousin Ānanda thought, oh, I must go and help my cousin. So he ran to Devadatta and said, look, you because you have created a terrible bad karma, you better Buddha said that you will die of poisoning in one week’s time. And, doubtful and as suspicious of Buddha, he said.
He said, no. Sometimes he wouldn’t call Buddha Buddha. He said, sometimes Gautama. Gautama is a nickname of family. You know?
Sometimes, Gautama’s lie comes true. I know that. So I must try not to eat anything for a week. And if I am still alive, then I can, you know, I can I know what to do? So he was counting day, day, not eating any.
He was fasting, you know. He doesn’t want to die from poisoning. He’s counting and counting. Because of his delusion, he was miscounting the days. He counted the third day as fourth, and then went wrong again.
So therefore, on the early morning of the sixth, he drank a mouthful of water, and then he died of poisoning. He died there. And a lot of things like that. If we have if we are not able to train our mind properly, even if the Buddha is right here, we cannot we can really not see. We can we as I said yesterday, we are all Buddhas.
We are all different types of Buddhas. If I am say right here, if I’m causing you lots of confusion and ignorance, I am no other than the Vairochana Buddha. Can you accept that? It’s difficult, isn’t it? Say, if I find you very demanding, if you I find you very demanding, always expecting clear explanations, simple, easy to understand.
That creates me the condition of understanding all of you as Amitābha Buddha. Because Amitābha Buddha’s nature is greed and wanting and desire. So I should be that actually is telling me that your all basic characteristic in the meantime is Amitābha Buddha. I know other than that. So we are not able to see that.
Therefore, we have to train ourselves. So therefore, the disciple, as I said, have to that receptivity, that pot that is free from the defective defect pot put up upside down. Having the sense of receptivity. Let it fall down, then you taste. And second defect of pot or disciple is a pot that is leaked.
No, pot that is leaking, yeah. Even though the pot is put exactly the same way where it should be, if it is broken, no matter how you put it, it’s going to be leaking. It’s going to fall down. So even if the attention is there, even if the attention is there, your attention, motivation is there to study. If there isn’t a total means clearly listen.
Clearly listen means to avoid the defect or put upside down. Like, but, clearly listen and comprehend the meanings. So, the danger of pot be having the defect of leaking is not being not comprehending the meaning, what is being taught. Please clearly listening and comprehend the meanings. What it means is that disciples should have this intelligence and this devotion to whatever is being poured down.
There are things that you will understand, things that will confuse you, things that will cause doubt, things that you cannot relate at all, things that can really make you understand fairly easy. Okay? Many things many things are poured because guru is wish-fulfilling gem. He’s giving you everything. Sweet, sour, bitter, astringent, everything.
Every kind of taste. But if your your taste is particular about it, there’s a danger of not able to comprehending all other tastes. Comprehending other tastes, thus losing interest and developing negative feelings to what is being poured that you dislike, that you can’t understand. So that’s this is when we say avoiding the defect of pot that is leaking, you were talking about being able to comprehend. Having the ability to even though you can’t understand, things that you understand, you’d keep.
Things you don’t understand, don’t make quick decision and conclusion about them, thinking, this I can’t relate to. This is ridiculous. This is out of, you know, out of my subject. This kind of, you know, demanding mind that is that wanting to make so quick decision that those things you can’t understand, you try to throw and develop negativities. That is that is the pot that is leaking.
So comprehending. Don’t look at the words. Look at the meanings. Don’t look at the person. Try to find what he’s what he’s trying to express from depth of his heart.
Whether he’s speaking from from his heart or, you know, whether it’s it is it is really coming straight that you can understand. Even if you can’t understand quite the word, quite if you can’t quite relate to the person as a person, can you still relate to whether he’s speaking from from his heart to his heart? Even though his word is grammatically wrong or, you know, the word doesn’t quite fit the way. It’s wrongly used and doesn’t really mean couldn’t really give you any understanding. Don’t look at the word, but look at the meanings.
So this is what I mean by freeing oneself from the defect of pot that is leaking, being able to comprehend the meanings deep enough. These are the qualities of disciple. Do you like qualities of a disciple? More than gurus, disciple qualities. There are many times there are many times when Marpa was teaching, Milarepa just barely allowed him to remain in his compound.
Didn’t quite give him teachings. When everybody is coming all of a sudden, sit down and receive his teachings. And while is sitting on the throne about to start his teaching, he’s looking around. He would see Milarepa sitting there. Go out.
Kick him. What are you doing around here? Kick him out, you see? Kick him out. So there are many, many stories like that, you know?
These days, probably, there’s not many qualified teachers. So therefore, don’t do it. They just they publicize it. I’m coming. My name is so and so.
And all these backgrounds, try to publicize and advertise, to make sure they come for you so that your time is not wasted. What a what a contrast of the time we have reached. I don’t know what is happening. The third quality defect that we have to be free from is what you have comprehend buried in the heart. Buried in the heart.
Or that is to say, the pot, even though it’s not broken, shouldn’t be dirty. If the pot is dirty, no matter what you wanna pour, even it’s water or milk or apple juice or whatever, it will be wouldn’t be good. Poison or dust, no good. So the person shouldn’t have any prejudices or preoccupied preoccupied mind when listening to learning anything, not only talking about teachings. If you listen to anybody, you can always find a truth.
You can always find a message. Be it a small boy or be it a old man, be it a renowned teacher, or be it eighty eighty year old grand, you know, gentleman or an old lady who hardly can speak. As long as you’re prepared to listen, you always get something. So that is saying that freeing the pot, freeing from the dirt, means if you are receptive and true that you can learn something, you can always learn from something. So that is to say, oh, I’m only coming to these teachings because I wanted to learn vajrayana teachings.
I wanted to learn this practice. Other than that, that gentleman doesn’t quite fit in my mind. Don’t fit in my my reality. Sort of sort of attitude. You know, you like parts, you don’t like others.
This is a very strange example. Maybe you don’t understand. It means means you’ll be this is typically fits in Tibetan nomad, you know. When one’s face looks very happy when eating the mutton, but when asked to pay for it, the face becomes dark. So so there’s a lot of the dedication we’re talking about.
Dedication, the hardships that one needs to face. Being able to bear the whole essence in the heart, being able to bear the whole essence of the teaching in the heart, is freeing the pot from the defect of being dirty, Being dirty. So things are very, very important to find a guru. Even if you find a guru or not find a guru, whether we’re going to be a wholehearted person to develop anything or not, we need to be free from these defects of three pots. Three defects of a pot.
Free from the unattentive mind, free from the distracted mind, free from the polluted mind. When we are free from these defects, then we become a very suitable vessel, suitable disciple. And providing that we have reached to this level, and having the strongest spiritual motivation, then a guru can be, guru will be knocking your door. There’s a lot of cases that guru always came to knock your door, rather than you going and finding the guru. There’s a lot of cases.
There’s many, many cases like that. So now I can tell you a little bit about how the actual meeting of the guru and disciple, and actually how their teachings are introduced and combined. This is done through initiation. Word initiation, you better know, empowerment, and consecration. It is known through many ways.
But I feel rather reluctant to use any of these word initiation. Initiation is quite okay. Empowerment, not necessary. Too bad. It’s too exotic.
Empowerment, someone giving you power. I don’t quite feel that. So rather, original Sanskrit word is abhisheka. Abhisheka means watering, sprinkling. Sprinkling something.
Sprinkling water on the already sown seed. So, through this initiation, through the initiation, what the guru really does is introduces the nature of the mind. As I said yesterday, guru might use a various ritualistic form, such as mandala, or whatever other rituals he might utilize to introduce your mind. But what really he’s trying to do is mature the already existing seed in you, rather than empowering you. The power or capacity is totally there.
The only thing is that we got the, like, say, electricity like this. We have to just switch it on. We have to know the electric circuit is joined. As long as it’s joined to the main switch, then you can push the button, and it will and the light will burn. Light will shine.
So, that’s the process of taking initiation is no other than joining joining the know, connecting the electricity from the main switch. It’s not so much of powering as empowering. It’s very much of activating already existing potential. So, how a disciple can really receive initiation, or how the guru can really initiate, how the ritual actually can perform the function of initiating totally depends to the disciple. As much as depends to guru and the ritual.
So you can possibly not receive initiation unless you know what is initiation. Unless you you know the whole process. It’s very, very, very difficult to get benefited from initiation unless one really you really called the electricity board to join the electric circuit. Unless you do that, even though you have your lights on? You can’t.
It wouldn’t it wouldn’t benefit you. So the process of initiation is done through various rituals. We like rituals. We like rituals. We have to like rituals because that’s the only we got.
So, ritual plays very, very choga. It’s called choga in the meden. Choga means a method. A method only. Method of making these things available and to understand.
So therefore, various complex rituals in which vajrayana method helps to understand the nature of mind are very complex. But as I said, vajrayana, the teaching of vajrayana is actually came from the word vajra. vajra has a mythical name, mythical name, from the thunderbolt, which is held by Brahma. Brahma, who is the transient god of this world, and a person to reach this state of enlightenment has to has to overcome this transient transient vajra, transient diamond. Diamond that is subject to change.
So when the Buddhas or vajrayana practitioners to be able to understand the nature of the vajra, is nature of their mind, nature of their mind. So the guru actually, through the initiation, what happens is providing that you come with these three sense of receptivity to the guru, what the guru does is guru kills you. Guru kill your ego. You like to go to initiation? Guru kill your ego with his.
He he says the mantra of emptiness, depending to the guru’s power and your receptivity. Guru kills your ordinary ego. Kills your ordinary ego. In other words, he dematerialize all of us. Dematerialize all of you.
So you have to be really dedicated enough, surrender to guru, and let him do what he wanted to do. So what really happens during the initiation is through his meditation and through his ritual, and hopefully with your total participation, then the killing can proceed. If you are allowed to kill properly, you’ll be born very properly. Because we we died reluctantly, we are all born reluctantly. So our very life is incomplete.
So what really guru does is he’s trying to create total transformation of you, because you’re quite not well born, in a sense. This ritualistically speaking. So through these initiatives, what guru does is through the techniques of his meditation and emptiness, and the, what we call the, means circulating the, or, you know, circling the vajra at his heart, which is the nature of the thunderbolt, that which has the ability to dismantle every materialistic composition. This is the mythical vajra through which the Buddha vajradhara has is trying to create the transitory nature of the world, and being able to understand the transitory nature of this, we actually be able to realize what we are. So in the meantime, we have this ordinary solid I.
Ordinary solid I that we cannot be detached from. So therefore, the ultimate indestructible vajra nature of us cannot be identified and perceived. So the guru has to do that. That’s because he is asked for. That has been asked for.
Through his meditation, All phenomena by nature pure, so you are pure. So killing actually is a pure act in this case, in vajrayana’s case. Through this, his visualization totally dematerialize you dematerialize you in a state of emptiness. You are empty. You haven’t become empty.
But in most translation, it says, you become emptiness. Out of the emptiness, you become something. But this is only a literal problem, but meaning is that you have been realized empty. And now, from that state of emptiness, you are not a product of emptiness though. What you’re going to be, as the guru is gonna create, is not a product of emptiness.
You are manifestation of empty, as you are now. So there’s no other. So what is really happening is you are reborn. Don’t you like that? In this very short period of time.
So he’s giving you a birth. Therefore, guru is called mother. And guru calls the disciple, my noble son, my noble daughter. There’s a lot of in vajrayana texts that’s so noble son and noble daughter. Because guru gives the birth to the true mind.
True awakened mind. So through this, what happens is out of emptiness, emptiness itself manifests into a lotus or moon or sun or whatever. This depends to whether it’s male tantra or female tantra or nondual tantra. Most male tantras have sun disk. More female tantric, female deity practice have moon disk.
So I don’t want to explain why, but just give you some idea. And whether or not there always is a lotus, there’s always a lotus from which you are created. Your transformation this very process of initiation is actually reenactment of enlightenment. So, your self transforming into emptiness, and that appearing in a lotus. Lotus is a symbol of purity.
Purity of motivation. Purity of bodhicitta, of compassion and loving kindness. Buddhas come out of bodhicitta, and we sentient beings come out of reborn due to our ignorance and selfishness. So, our ordinary ego has been totally transformed into pure lotus. And from that, on top of that, whether there is sun disk or moon disk, there’s always a syllable.
Syllable, the name. The name is amazing, powerful. Without name, we can’t be anything. We can’t do anything. We can’t talk.
We can’t listen. We can’t communicate. So the name of the syllable, more correctly, the syllable is actually represent your consciousness. Your consciousness that which took in mother’s womb, but conceived in mother’s womb, here, in this case, it’s the whole process of conception and rebirth, being reborn, will take during the initiation. So, providing that disciple is totally attentive and be there with great sense of attention and devotion and faith and renunciation and his dedication, the guru will do the rest.
But your mind has to be tuned, and various ritual techniques will be implemented, through which the visualization, whatever he explained, one has to relate to. So from that syllable or whatever, the syllable rays of light goes out and comes in. And finally, it transforms into whatever initiation like such as, say, the initiation of Avalokiteśvara, like which belongs to Buddha Amitābha Buddha family. You are transformed. You are being transformed in that very, very, very initiate very initiation.
And you are said, oh, you have one face, two hands. You got these. You look beautiful. You’re wearing these. You’re holding these.
You’re introduced to yourself. As we were born, as we were born, we are held by our mummy, carrying our hair. This is your nose. This is your eye. This is your we got we got told.
We got introduced to these things conceptually. Conceptually. And we really become we really even the name when we were first given is very, very unreal. Very unreal. Something that you never heard and is making you think this, what is this name?
What is this sound? Because you call him so much. Because mommy calls so much, and the baby has no other than to accept this habit of listening. So feeling, me, me, okay. Then then start like this.
That’s how saṃsāra, our rebirth, and our conceptual, our whole reality now is able to function on basis based upon these conceptual patterns. Now, in this real initiation, what is happening is guru is doing very carefully. He’s not just playing you. He’s just giving you real name. He’s just giving you real names about how you look like.
And therefore, during this period of time, guru’s introducing you how you look like, how your face, body, implements, all these things. He explains you what they represent. And we are told this is your hand. That’s all we are told. Other than that, we are not told.
That’s how we got confused. That’s how whole life was because we were ruled by majority ideas, and we have nothing. We’re born here as a fresh person, and we just got burdened by these old concepts, and we just got heavily burdened. We had no way of appearing ourselves as we really truly are. So there’s not much to not much we can do.
So the initiation is extremely important. So your death is not death. It’s real enlightenment. Real enlightenment is taking place during the initiation, rather than the death. So after living guru explained to you the total appearance of you, how you look like, how you look like, and what really represent these things, then that is actually yourself being able to reach a mature age in this ordinary life.
Mature age, about, say, in the West, maybe seventeen or eighteen. You really feel like leaving your parents. You really feel like leaving your parents, looking for your own job, and getting tired of your parents. But it seems there still needs to parents permission or whatever, whatever permission or something that their parents will they think that these children can look after themselves, then let them go. So in this initiation, what happens is the guru not only creates you and introduce how you really look like and what kind of name he’s giving you with this enlightened point of view.
He, again, invokes the initiating beings, initiating Buddhas. You are just a pledge being. At the meantime, what’s called pledge being. Pledge. Just a pledge.
You haven’t quite matured to realize yourself. So you’re just a pledge holder. Then his whole process of invoking the initiating beings and initiate you, empower you to fulfill you, to fill you, to make you feel that you are resultant You’re not just a mere replica of Avalokiteshvara. So just as we go through in a sense, as an ordinary way of feeling that you are now given the authority to be your own lord and go your own way, similarly, this initiation is granted through this initiative, but this interesting thing, whole initiation process is what the practice you have to do afterwards as a practitioner. So the initiation process is the most important thing.
And after you have been initiated and making yourself no different from the ultimate and resultant Buddha Avalokiteśvara, then what you do is you’re given the transmission of the mantra, transmission of the word recitation. Why? When we are when we leave our parents and we feel we are able to look out ourself, we do all the things for our own. We speak for ourself. We speak for ourself.
We tell lies. We communicate with people. We engage in conversation in our own right. And, we create karma by our own self. Ordinary, samsarically speaking.
So what is, during this initiation, the guru is making you to recite this mantra, which, samsarically speaking, transforms your ordinary conversation, ordinary activities we create from our speech. And in Nirvanically speaking, as I said, whole initiation is no other than the reenactment of the Buddha’s life, life of Buddha. When Buddha was born in Lumbini, do you know how he was born? He was born and he first time he stepped stepped on the ground, he was walking on lotus. He was walking walking on lotus.
Every time he put his foot feet on the ground, a lotus blossomed. So you the birth of the Buddha is very much represented in the whole process of the initiation. When Buddha, as a as a prince a prince Siddhartha, when he reached to the age of maturity around twenty age of twenty five, his father gave him, you know, coronated him to become his successor through the ordinary ritual of empowering him to accept him to become the royal ruler. So, that in that that whole process of bodhisattva’s life is very much reenacted in that very initiation ceremony, as well as purifying our ordinary way of thinking that we are now becoming self sufficient, be ourselves, have our own flat, not needing mother to buy this and that. And feeling our own self self sufficiency is purified.
This ordinary gross grasp grasping of arrogance and self sufficiency is empowered by, you know, purified by the giving of initiation. So after Buddha reaching, Buddha practicing so many years of hardships, that is to say, yourself having during the initiation, this might be a bit complicated because I’m trying to show you the samsaric purification, what is being done during the initiation, as well as what is happening nirvanically corresponding to the life of the Buddha. Anyway, I will have to try this. So what will happen is, after you after you are given this, you know, whole explanation of yourself, how you look like, and you get empowered to be the resultant Buddha, you’re given the aural transmission of the mantra, Then you are taught to meditate and recite the mantra with the guru. So that is similar to the six years of hard meditation that Bodhisattva Siddhartha had to go through.
And ourself fighting for this. Waking up early in the morning, going to a job, being tired and exhausted, coming from work, everything looks so, you know, coming to home around six or seven o’clock, being very exhausted, tired, sleeping and not wanting, not wanting, you know? Wake up early in the morning, go again, always tired and exhausted and giving penance, real self penance we go through in our life. That is actually, our life is no other than the real austere impure austerity in our life. Impure suffering.
The suffering that is not worth. So that all the difficulties that we undergo through is not worth. So, that difficulty, ordinary activities that we engage in, ordinary life, is purified in this very sessional meditation that you’re put into. That imprints your mind. At the same time, you are creating the habitual thoughts on your mind to reenact the Bodhisattva’s six year hardship practices.
When you reach to that level, afterwards, you many years of hardworking, waking up early morning, coming back early late, and even sometimes working working on the weekends. So many hard years after hard years work, what do you feel? Now retire. Build a beach house. Go to holiday.
Here and there, what do we do? Okay. What do we do? That’s part of the celebration of many years of hardships, isn’t it? That’s Samsari ability or achievement.
Buddha’s achievement, after six years of meditation, is realization of enlightenment, and all he got is a gift of realization. The Dharma he’s about to teach to everybody. Whereas we, some samsarically speaking, after many years’ hard work, we wanted to glorify ourself. I did work so many years. I deserve a holiday.
I deserve a real, easy, easy life. So that’s so through that very initiation time, during which you are allowed to recite the mantra, ordinary recitation of the mantra, is actually purifies ordinary method of indulging ourselves after a whole thirty, forty years of hard work. That is purified by that very act in that ceremony of initiation. And plus, it reenacts ourselves to actualize the turning of the wheel of Dharma, hoping to become a historical Buddha. And creating ourself the right tendency to actually enact ourself as a historical Buddha in either within that short period of meditation or mantra.
And whether we are able to do this or not, we die in ordinary life. We die in ordinary life. We die after many years of hard work or sometimes as childhood. You pass away leaving everything behind. So that is purified at the conclusion of the initiation during which guru teaches meditation, during which he says, everything outside absorbs into light, and yourself dissolves into light, and dissipates, and diminishes the state of emptiness.
That process purifies ordinary death that we have to inevitably undergo through, and enact ourself to be able to actually pass into the that history of the Shakyamuni Buddha demonstrated. So initiation is not just a piece of ritual. Piece of ritual, during which guru will ring his bell and let you smell this mug and pour something you drink, and you think you’re blessed going home. It’s this is very old Asian people just like something to receive and drink and have tie around their neck, nose or ears or their necks. They think they get receive initiation.
That’s no form of initiation according to Trapadriana teachings. So this gives you some understanding what initiation does do to you as a disciple who really have these basic characteristic and qualities, as I mentioned before. Then the guru’s process of meditation tremendously become powerful. And rituals, everything becomes a nature of communication, like the wire, like the wire through we speak. Hello?
To you hello? You’re in New York? We speak this through. So all these rituals become very unique. When we can use it carefully, all these rituals become very indispensable technique of of, I would say, connecting the circuit between you and the guru.
I don’t wanna go late. It’s nine o’clock. Anyway, so that gives you brief understanding of during the what happens, what the guru tried to do you during the initiation, what is meant to happen. There’s an ordinary death. There’s a spiritual death that you have to accept.
And there’s a spiritual birth you have to accept. There’s a total purification of your ordinary life since the birth up to death, and total reenactment of the bodhisattva’s life. What a productive time. Okay. If you do understand initiation and you when you’re really ready, it’s really amazingly powerful time.
The rituals are just simple but amazingly powerful. There’s one teaching, one disciple called. He belongs to the Kadampa tradition. He never met anybody who read from whom really got up, proper initiation. He received a lot of teachings.
He never used to get proper education. He always go with his friend who was a shepherd. So one day he went to an unusual place with his friend to look after the cattle, and he reached to a very top of a mountain from which he had an unusual view of another valley. And he reached to this valley, and he asked his friend, what is the name of that valley, and what kind of people live there? And his friend said, oh, that’s a place called Mugulong.
It’s in La South Tibet. It’s in Mangkhar Mugulung. That’s in Mangal Mugulong. And he said, what’s there? He said, there is a great translator called Dromtonpa.
As soon as, you know, this boy heard the name of Dromilotsawa, he trembled and fallen on the ground for some reason. Must be his coming, you know, linked teacher that was hearing of his name just made him to feel some kind of sense of realization. And then he just, as soon as he got home, he just forced his parents to take him to this teacher as soon as possible, crying whole night. He wouldn’t eat. He wouldn’t sleep.
He wouldn’t do anything. And he forced his parents that that he’d be taken to this teacher. Exactly when the parents took, the teacher was about to start initiation, just before initiation. So he entered in, and he was admitted. And he didn’t understand much about it, but he’s got this amazing karmic link.
And when the guru was therefore performing the initiation, especially during which, during the initiation, there’s a warm showering of transcendental wisdom. At that period of time, most of us who were there were very thick. They even accepted death. So they were thick. Nothing was happening.
Everyone was closing their eyes, hoping that something would happen. This small boy was like trembling like anything. Know? He was shaking like anything, fast like a flag in the middle of a, you know, you know, windy place. And the teacher was approaching everybody one by one.
He oh, he said, oh, my my little boy. What is happening? Of course, the boy couldn’t say anything. Then the teacher said, oh, it must be you’re receiving my blessings. Then teacher went back and sat down.
You know? So he became very, very great great lineage holder himself. So so initiation ceremony, when you’re when we are prepared and ready and mature enough, it has this kind of quality. Even if you haven’t got these things sorted out ourself, no matter how close you sit with the guru, no matter how many, you know, tons of smoke you we would breathe, how many, you know, no matter how many heavy golden vases the guru touches on your forehead, no matter how many tons of nectar you drink, there’s no initiation at all happening. So it’s it’s a matter of karmic maturity, karmic link.
Providing that you have received these properly, I’m I’m not really making you very discouraged, am I? Okay. Providing that you have received our initiation, that you have felt that you have received, that you have felt with the teacher that who is your guru, from whom you have received something, then it is very important as far as the practice is concerned. The whole idea of initiation is that you initiate every day to yourself. It is the way of acknowledging yourself, initiation, and then you do it every day.
Every day. What happens is in ordinary life, this ordinary life we have, every day we repeat the same kind of life. Every day. So initiation of sadhana practitioner. The practice given after receiving initiation is called sadhana.
Is means method of attaining, method of establishing in a stage, method of achieving. Person who practices the sadhana is called sadhaka, one who practices, practitioner. What the person aims to receive his practices is siddhi, trying to earn siddhi. If you really practice hard according to the practice to attain the two siddhis, if you really attain what you want to attain from the practice, it’s called siddha, mahasidha, who really has reached this. So, so far, there were historically eighty four Siddhas, and there were many too.
But eighty four noted Siddhas, Mahasidhas, great accomplished beings in in Indian great vajrayana practitioners. And we had many in Tibet, but they’re not quite, you know, counted. Probably we had too many or too few. Either we had too many, maybe too few, you know? Don’t know.
Maybe quite quite a lot, according to what I’ve heard, but they’re not yet counted, you know, strategically. Statistically, they’re not counted. Anyway, there have been many, many Siddhas. There there have been many, many great practitioners on basis practices. But what, I was talking to you talking to you yesterday, we have we through the initiation practice, we have to be able to reach reach that level of realization.
So among the many practices, although you might be given a particular sadhana or practice to go through, but still you have to fulfill the ngöndro. Ngöndro means foundation practices. The word ngöndro means that which has to go before. Pre pre university classes, before you go to university. Before you really appreciate into deep vajrayana meditation retreat practice, you must finish these foundation practices.
Without the foundation practices, we cannot really realize our ignorance as Vairochana Buddha, as Dharmadhatu, our our our hatred is Akṣobhya. We can’t realize these things. So vajrayana’s technique has skillfully developed a technique of foundation practices, four or five or even six, method of attacking these related defilements, such as defilements such as ignorance. For ignorance, in order to attack ignorance, gross defilements of ignorance, there’s one particular foundation practices. Each of these defilements, all these foundation practices has been developed.
There’s their refuge or prostration. There’s a Vajrasattva practice or mandala offering or guru yoga. All all these practices has been mapped out very carefully in order to attack the gross defilements because it is things to go before. Things to go before so that you can really realize the ultimate nature of your mind. Unless you you are able to, we have a saying, if you don’t accumulate merit if you don’t accumulate merit, you won’t be able to accumulate wisdom.
Realizing true nature of your mind through the initiation is realizing the wisdom. We can’t realize wisdom without accumulating merit. So therefore, the four or five these preliminary foundation practices are indispensable if one has been privileged enough to be initiated in having found a guru, if one wanted to make real progresses of vajrayana practices. Yesterday, I was referring to you about about igniting kundalini and to join, you know, do and and stopping the dualism by letting the energies go into the central channel. These things is extremely dangerous.
You cannot possibly benefit from this without this such foundation basis. These are therefore these are therefore just nice cakes in the glass. You have to open the glass. Very, very careful. Where is the lock?
Where is the key? You have to open this very carefully. They look very exotic. They look very scrumptious. They look very wow.
What if I could do? But there are many, many similar practices in other non-Buddhist practices. But difference why difference between Buddhist tantra and other non-Buddhist tantra is that Buddhist tantra necessarily emphasize these trainings to go before. Before one is actually capable of making, you know, using about the about such as the six yogas. Six yogas of illusion, yogas of illusion, yoga of dream, yoga of bardo, yoga of death, yoga of clear light, all these practices has no places to benefit if one does doesn’t finish these foundation practices.
If I tell you my own experience in vajrayana path, not that I really feel as a vajrayana path practitioner, I sometimes even don’t feel to be a Buddhist practitioner when I really look at what really, truly speaking, showed up with this be. You know? That’s that’s the one nature of the vajrayana practice is the more you practice the outward practice of vajrayana, less you feel vajrayana. You don’t develop this pride as you’re being vajrayana because the practices themselves are authentic and special. But when we bump our head to the wall, you’ll know how strong the head is.
You know? So the vajrayana practice is very solid, as I said, very solid. And we try to approach nearer and nearer, then we experience all the weaknesses of ourselves. So you will realize that I’m not quite capable of really approaching as much as I’m doing. So if I really tell you my own experience of vajrayana training, even though they train all the existing, every the six yogas and whole thing, I have never experienced a convincing realization convincing realization in any of these deity yoga practices nor in the six yogas of Naropa, but only in the foundation practices.
The first nine months was the only thing that really made me something to feel, and it it was only that made me to feel something about vajrayana practices. It never made me to made me to expect the the higher practices. It always makes your mind to be more solid, to be more basic, to be more, you know, trying to firm your foundation. So it doesn’t really make you to have a expecting mind to grasp the pinnacle. It really makes you to look where your foot, where your feet are.
It doesn’t make your feet itchy to go to the pinnacle. It makes you sure where your feet is actually standing. This is the quality and characteristic of vajrayana practices. So I I therefore feel that.