Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 29-minute session, Kyabje Rinpoche provides a detailed visualization of the inner offering blessing ritual in Heruka tantra. Starting with light radiating from the heart, he traces how sacred streamers activate the wind and fire, heating the skull cup’s substances until they melt. A white HUM transforms into an upside-down Khatvanga that descends into the cup, purifying the foul orange mass into pristine white nectar with miraculous properties—capable of reviving the dead and curing all sickness. He then details how Sanskrit syllables OM, Ah, and HUM descend to eliminate defects, transform the substance to nectar, and render it inexhaustible. A Q&A segment clarifies visualization details and the ritual’s symbolism. For practitioners already initiated into Heruka.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1989-09-02 – 2A – KR.mp3
UUID: 360185b7-5b54-4be5-8552-42778391d156
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Heruka Commentary
Date: 1989-09-02
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~1,201
So now we have we have before us a skull cup with five meats and five liquids. At this point it’s just liquid and meats. Now from our heart, light Light radiates out striking the streamers which are hanging from the wind mandala. By striking the streamers it causes the wind to move. The movement of the wind causes the fire to blaze up which due to the heat of the fire blazing the substances in the skull cup begin to boil just like butter, melting, the substances begin to melt.
So, as it says in the actual ritual here, light radiates, the wind blows, the fire blazes, and all the ingredients melt. Then from the heart of Heruka comes a white HUM which positions itself over the skull cup and the HUM transforms, not into a white, the letter of this is it transforms into a Khatvanga, upside down, an upside down Khatvanga which is now up above the skull cup. Then due to the presence of this white khaṭvāṅga, the substances boil even more rapidly and the vapors begin to rise up and due to this striking, the Khatvanga. The Khatvanga descends down, circles around the skull cup and then falls into the skull cup itself blessing the substances within. Due to the previous, prior to the Khatvanga falling into the skull cup, the substances had a very bad smell.
They had an awful color about them. They were like an orange ish color, an orange ish color. But now due to the Khatvanga falling into the skull cup, blessing the substances, then there’s no smell. The color is transformed into white color. Whiteness becomes This nectar has many qualities such as drinking, taking a drink of this nectar would even if someone, if you gave it to a corpse which had been dead for a few days, it would come back to life.
It is the nectar of immortality. It is the nectar of the wisdom of emptiness. It alleviates all sickness. So it It is so the in order we had to perform in order to make this offering, we had to perform various activities in order to bless it. It’s through the boiling action that we eliminate the various obstacles to the offering, to the imparting of the offering.
It is due to the descent of the Khatvanga into the substances that the substance is purified. And then in order to increase the offering, we then imagine that above the skull cup are the three lines of vowels and consonants as Rinpoche was reciting, which are formed into three garlands or malas. Garlands of vowels and consonants. These then condense condense into three syllables OM, Ah, HUM which then descend, which fall into the skull cup. This increases the offering.
So above the skull cup are the three lines garland of the consonants and vowels of the Sanskrit alphabet. So there’s a three circular garlands, one on top of another of the letter. The topmost garland condenses in, you know, as the ritual says. It condenses condenses into HUM, the middle garland condenses into Ah, the bottom garland condenses into Om. Then from this Om Ah HUM, light radiates out to the Tathagatas, those that have gone or just simply the Buddhas to all the various heroes and yoginis in the 10 directions.
And from this light radiating out this nectar is drawn forth into the respective skull cup. Then the HUM descends into the skull cup and this has the ability to eliminate all the faults, defects of this nectar, of this substance. The HUM eliminates the defects of the substance. Then the ah falls into the skull cup which transforms the substance into nectar. And then the om falls into the skull cup which makes the nectar inexhaustible.
It never decreases no matter how much it’s used. It never decreases. And then we recite the mantra Om Ah HUM three times. We’ll stop there for today. Today this is the method of blessing the inner offering.
The picture. In the photograph of Heruka, he’s holding in his crook of his arm that long pole staff. That is a Khatvanga. Yeah, like a staff. Okay.
Yeah. Okay. Alright. When when when? This half moon is blue colored wind mandala with the flat part facing down.
So it doesn’t have a substance. It is in nature of wisdom. So, wind mandala is a transformation of the seed letter YAM which is wisdom consciousness. And then, this wisdom consciousness transforms into the wind mandala. All of this is in the nature of wisdom, exalted wisdom.
Nature. So everything is done out of transformation of emptiness. Everything becomes empty and there is a wisdom consciousness realizing emptiness and all of this is made out of this wisdom consciousness. Everything is constructed out of this wisdom consciousness. So, but this in nature, the very it is the wisdom understanding emptiness, but it is has an aspect of wind, fire, the five meats, the five nectars.
Yeah. It’s sufficient sufficient just to think that here is, for instance, in the case of a wind mandala, a blue a shape such as this, a half moon shape, and blue color. So the streamers, that’s not a very good translation. Are three each of them, there’s two streamers. Each one has made of three strips with jointed pieces of you can imagine they’re cloth.
And then this is done in order to, when we radiate light out from the HUM, this causes it to wave like a fan. So this fanning action of the streamers causes the fire to blaze up, melting the substances in the skull cup. Did I did I make a mistake? So this is a this is a strip this is a streamer. You know, it’s just got this this one piece across here and then three strips of cloth hanging there.
Maybe we can photocopy this and everybody can have their own. The So each of the seed syllables of the conquerors corresponds to their particular color. So this is the size is in accordance with how you’re able to imagine it. So it doesn’t matter, it’s your individual choice. You think about it.
Yeah, If it’s great, if it’s very big, it’s okay. Where is North? I didn’t specify North. The carcasses are in the intermediate directions. The carcasses are in the intermediate directions.
One. Yeah. The east is always toward you. You should always think that east is towards you. That’s your reference point.
So the the the heads are facing up in the three directions. So each of them is facing out. So that and then and the backs of their heads are touching. So this is, it has formed as was mentioned like when you place a pot on three stones acting as a base. The heads act as a base for the skull cup.
So this is extremely there’s a tremendous amount of symbolism involved in this and it can be explained on the two levels of the generation stage of tantra and the completion stage of tantra. Within this offering there is actually the symbolism of the complete path of Tantra.