Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute instruction on Lama Chöpa (Guru Puja), Kyabje Rinpoche teaches practitioners how to visualize their guru as Tsongkhapa within an elaborate mandala: wish-granting tree, lion thrones, nested lotus seats, and offerings. At Tsongkhapa’s heart appears Śākyamūni Buddha; at Śākyamūni’s heart, Vajradhāra, the primordial Buddha of secret mantra. Rather than three separate beings, Rinpoche clarifies they share one nature—the wisdom of bliss and emptiness—using a chocolate analogy to show how one substance manifests in many forms. He describes Tsongkhapa’s appearance in detail: white robe, yellow pandita hat, hand gestures showing both teaching and meditation, lotus stems by the ears bearing texts and the sword of wisdom. The practice culminates in visualizing the body mandala, where 32 deities reside within the guru and the student’s aggregates purify into the five Buddhas. For practitioners with grounding in Guhyasamāja.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1992-07-03 – 7A – KR.mp3
UUID: decf648d-cf38-487a-a610-e9acc2a55ac4
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Guru Puja – Lama Chopa
Date: 1992-07-03
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,096
For the sake of myself and all living beings equal to space I will quickly obtain the complete perfect fearless state of Buddhahood. Having attained that state, I will then free all sentient beings from their suffering and establish them in complete happiness. In order to achieve that end I’m going to meditate on the way of the essence of the universal vehicle Dharma that is secret mantra, the Vajra vehicle and within that practice which constitutes the essential precepts of the practice of Guhyasamāja that is a Guru Puja by reflecting, by listening and reflecting and meditating on this practice in order to bring about great benefit to myself and others. So we are explaining in an abbreviated manner the place in which we are going to meditate on the lama that is the place where the lamas reside. As we’ve explained previously the place in which the lamas are placed, residing is constituted out of the wisdom taken as its object bliss and emptiness that we generate a mind of bliss and with this blissful consciousness we then take as its object emptiness and generate the wisdom of the inseparability of bliss and emptiness.
Emptiness, we should imagine that the entire space before us is pervaded with wisdom of bliss emptiness, and within this space that this bliss with emptiness, the wisdom of bliss emptiness takes a substantial form in unimaginable various types of offerings. And then with amongst these are this display of offerings there is the wish-granting tree with upon which is a lion throne, upon the lion throne is eleven-tiered lotuses gradually becoming smaller towards the top. Then upon the topmost of these 11 tiered lotuses is a the highest most lotus is a four petal lotus. Within the center of the four petal lotus is a lion throne, a smaller lion throne in which upon which is a lotus, moon, and sun. Upon this uppermost throne, the lotus is symbolic of the determination to awaken.
That is a renunciation. The moon is symbolic of the awakening heart. The sun is symbolic of the authentic view of emptiness. Upon the throne is one’s own root lama who possessing the three kindnesses being that lama who has given us the empowerment, has given us teachings and secret mantras and showed us and given us the precepts on the stages of practice setting up the stages. And then aspect, the lama is that is but in nature.
So in aspect, that is by aspect the actual visual form, it is as it is pictured but in nature, spiritual teacher, lama. So there is the the the main figure is in the aspect of Lama Tsongkhapa. Lama Tsongkhapa’s heart, therefore much smaller, would be Śākyamūni Buddha as is image Śākyamūni Buddha that is to say with Ushnisha, the top protrusion, with the various thirty two and eighty signs and marks with two arms and with the right hand holding, left hand holding a alms bowl filled with nectar, the right hand touching the earth. Nice, nice And then at the the heart of of the lord, and it’s to say that lord here refers to Śākyamūni Buddha, is the conqueror Vajradhāra. Vajradhāra is blue in color with one face, two arm embracing his consort Vajradhātu Ishvari, they both are wearing all the various precious ornaments.
And then in the heart of the conqueror Vajradhāra, upon a moon disc or cushion is the meditative syllable HUM, blue in color, radiating out five light five colors of light There is the outermost figure who is in the aspect of Tsongkhapa but in the nature of one’s lama and this being is referred to as Lobsang. Then within the heart of Lobsang is the Lord that is the Śākyamūni Buddha. Lobsang Shakya, Lobsang Thub, Thub one is Lord and then within the heart of the Lord is Vajradhāra, Dorje Chang. So we have the Lama, Lobsang, Lord, Dorje Chang. Lama, This is the embodiment of three beings.
The Lama, Lobsang and the Lord. Lama, Lobsang and Lord are the commitment beings or Samaya Vajrasattva. Vajradhāra is the wisdom being or the Jñāna Vajrasattva. And then at the heart of Vajradhāra is the letter HUM which is the concentration or the Samādhi sattva. So the reason the Lama is meditated on as the Lama is the foundation of one’s practice.
In dependence, in reliance upon the Lama, the various happinesses of this life, future life, temporal and ultimate happinesses are gained. Therefore, this represents the Lama is the source of all of one’s happiness and this represents the practice of Guru Yoga union with the Lama. And then the Lobsang is Tsongkhapa who is the source of the Gelug tradition and the Guru Yoga of Ganden, Ganden Guru Yoga. And then the Lord is meditated on the Śākyamūni Buddha is meditating upon being the source of the Dharma that is the teacher of the Dharma, the master of the Dharma. And then because it is within that secret mantra then Vajradhāra is meditated.
The at the heart is meditated on because it is only the Buddha who radiates his light of the from his heart. The symbolizes Buddha. But you should not think that these beings are unrelated one to another just as if we were to fill the various offering bowls with different substances and there would be no particular relationship between what you put in this bowl and what you put in this bowl. But in fact they have a very great relationship with close affinity. So these beings are not unrelated one to another?
They merely are appearing to the student in various aspects, but in fact they are of the same nature. To whom at the central most heart in the nature of the wisdom of the non duality of bliss emptiness, and this radiates out light which then takes on aspects in terms of secret mantra, taking on the aspect of Vajradhāra. In terms of sūtra, it takes on appearance of the Lord that is the Śākyamūni Buddha. And then for the sake of students then it takes on the aspect of Tsongkhapa and then finally the aspect of the Lama. So these are not unrelated to one to another but in fact are simply different aspects of the same nature that is the wisdom of the non-duality of bliss and emptiness.
So These beings are not mutually exclusive one to another, but they are simply different aspects appearing to different students according to the needs of the disciples. Sometimes nature of the non duality of emptiness takes the form of a Buddha, sometimes a bodhisattva. Sometimes it can take the appearance of water, a bridge, a book. For those who are hungry it could take the appearance of food. For those who are thirsty it could be water for drinking.
But whatever is the need of the student that this wisdom will take on that aspect but actually there are different aspects. It’s all of one nature. Okay. So if we were to take to an analogy would be in Australia we could take the analogy of chocolate. It comes in all different varieties of shapes and sizes.
And then you get chocolate drops. You can do sometimes it’s flat squares, sometimes it’s long in bars. So it comes in a variety of different shapes and sizes. But though it comes in these different forms, these different shapes, it’s all of the same nature. It’s all chocolate.
And likewise with respect to these beings, Lama, Lobsang, the Lord, and Vajradhāra. Though they in fact come in different forms, their nature are all one, the same nature that is to say the wisdom of the non-duality of bliss and emptiness. So we we are taking as the object of our practice of Guru Yoga, the union with the spiritual master, the Lama in the aspect of Tsongkhapa who we are meditating on and he is in the aspect of having one face, two arms, a white but slightly reddish tint and with a smile on his face. So his right hand is in the mudrā in the hand gesture of teaching the Dharma. The left hand is in the Mudra of Meditative Equipoise which is cradling an alms bowl filled with white nectar.
So it’s it’s what would you say? It’s filled with white nectar, which is not. Yeah. So it’s mounted. It’s like a mounted.
This this nectar is a nectar of immortality, of of uncontaminated wisdom, and the freedom from disease. So, the mudrā, the hand gestures, one in the aspect of teaching the Dharma, the other in the aspect of meditative equipoise is such that it represents the aspect of a Buddha. That only a Buddha is able to while in meditative equipoise on emptiness able to from that state continue to teach the Dharma. As sentient beings aren’t able to do this, they aren’t able to both be in meditative equipoise and teach the Dharma at the same time only a Buddha is able to do this. So then they’re holding in his hands the stems of two lotuses which rise up and are situated by his ears.
On the right side, these are Utpala and upon this Utpala, the open Utpala lotus is the sword of wisdom which is symbolic of the emptiness, the realization emptiness and this sword is wreathed in burning fire. In the left lotus is a text. This text can be in accordance with whatever the student may be studying. If one were involved in the practice of Lam Rim, the graduated path to enlightenment then it would be a Lam Rim text. If one was involved in secret mantra, practicing secret mantra it would be a secret mantra text.
If one was studying Madhyamaka, middle way, would be a middle way text. If one was studying perfection of wisdom, it would be a perfection of wisdom text. So and then his head is a golden-colored pandita hat. We’re coming to a peak. And then he is wearing the three robes of a monk.
The two robes which are the like the two shawls, one similar to Rinpoche, yellow and then another one is worn over that also. So these two and then the skirt. So these are the three robes of a monk. Then he’s sitting, his his feet are in the Vajra posture asana. And then as was explained at his heart is the Lord that is the Śākyamūni Buddha who is yellow in color with one face, two arms having all the various marks such as the the top knot, the crown protrusion.
Then as we explained, the Lord is in the aspect as pictured, cradling an alms bowl filled with nectar and also wearing the three robes. And then at the heart of the Lord, as has been explained, the conqueror Vajradhāra with one face, two arms, blue in color, etcetera. And we should imagine that Lama and Lord and Vajradhāra are radiating out light. So now we have to meditate the body mandala. I just said in the case of Vajrayoginī here, we meditate on the body mandala.
Here is the body of mandala is in accordance with the practice of Guhyasamāja in which within the body of the lama are resides 32 deities. So remember she was just reciting the verses that we’ve just covered thus far and we’ve recited, we’ve gone, we’ve covered up to the very first line at verse number 12 radiating out thousands of light rays. Yeah, okay. That’s where we’ve gotten up to. So okay.
The the lama, the lord, and and are radiating out five colored lights. They’re white, yellow, red. White, yellow, red, blue and green. So then sit in the position. And it says that totally pure Skandhas, the aggregates, are the five Buddhas gone to bliss.
So, five aggregates, aggregates forms, feelings, perceptions, mental constructions and consciousnesses. Normally our aggregates are impure aggregates and we’re going to purify them within by means of the wisdom of the non duality of bliss emptiness and having purified them then they become the five Buddhas gone to bliss. They appear that way. So the aggregate form, When the impure aggregate form is purified it is transformed into Buddha Vairochana and Vairochana resides within the lama from the crown to the hairline. Three faces, six arms. So all the all the various stages. So all the various stages in of the Guhyasamāja mandala have three faces and six arms.