Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 47-minute talk, Kyabje Rinpoche teaches the precise choreography of offerings in Heruka sādhana, distinguishing Mother Tantra (Chakrasamvara) from Father Tantra (Guhyasamāja)—each requires offerings in opposite directions. After preliminary work, he turns to the core Vajrasattva purification using four opponent powers to eliminate negativities and obstructions. He covers going for refuge to common and uncommon sources, cultivating bodhicitta to practice for all beings, and the complete Vajrasattva visualization. He concludes with a detailed mantra breakdown, explaining each syllable: requests for protection, closeness, and affection from Vajrasattva, ending with requests for the four activities. For practitioners who have already received Heruka initiation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1989-09-09 – 3B – KR.mp3
UUID: 108b0896-2201-47a6-bea6-fea2d56a3857
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Heruka Commentary
Date: 1989-09-09
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,171
The name of the day is the the offering of food. And then finally, the Shabda, the offering of music, and you know in general there are various types of music that are offered. You know the horns, beating on drums, things like that. The highest Yoga Tantra, this is the way the hand gesture of offering of music. Having purified the offerings, then we are going to make the actual presentation.
And this we make to the two generations of the deities, the front generation and self generation. So within the highest yoga tantra there is Mother Tantra and Father Tantra. For example, Guhyasamāja and Chakrasamvara. Chakrasamvara and these have a different way of offering. Chakrasamvara, the Heruka, is a Mother Tantra.
And in Mother Tantra there is an orientation toward the left. And so, here with respect to the offering to the front deity, there’s a deity, there’s an offering site in front of you, that deity in front of you. Then you’re going to make the offerings from that deity’s left. So it would be your right, but that deity’s left. So the Aragam Padam, so from that front deity left Aragam Padam, the nine offerings are being made.
But in the case of Father Tantra for example, the offerings are made from the beginning of the right side. So the deity that the offering site in front and making offering to the right side of that deity. So it would be the reverse in presenting the nine offering. With respect to the offering to the front what we call the front generation that the offerings are the same. It’s simply a matter of the order in which they are presented either from right to left or left to right.
Then we also make offerings to ourselves generation. That is to say that we have arisen in the form of a deity and this is called self generation. And we emanate the goddesses from our heart and present offerings. And so, one’s self as a Heruka, you’re going to make offerings to yourself as Heruka. And as was explained in Mother Tantra, the offerings are made from left to right.
And so presenting them to yourself, argham would be first offering is made on your own left hand side and then proceeding to the right. And then, on the other hand, if when we’re meditating Guhyasamāja and when we’re making the offerings to the self generation, since it is a father tantra, begins with the on the right and then the offerings would begin with argham on the right side and proceeding to the left. So all the ways of proceeding are the same in whether it’s Mother Tantra or Father Tantra. It’s just that the offering to self generation would be in Father Tantra would be from one’s own right to the left, and Mother Tantra to the self generation from one’s own left to the right, and likewise with the front generation to that front generations in Mother Tantra’s from the front generations left to right, and Father Tantra from that generations right to left. And so the way of offering to in the preliminary ritual of offering is exactly the same presented here, but the offering site, the object of offering is in front of you.
And so the offerings are made from the point of view of the offering site from the deities left to right. And the same gestures, hand gestures, mudras are used in mother and father tantra. So making the offerings, the preliminary offerings which are not presented directly here would be done in the exact same way that we’ve that it’s presented here as far as the self generations offerings. Presenting the offerings to the deity in front of oneself from again, in Mother Tantra from that deity’s left proceeding to the right. The way of blessing those offerings is as was presented here, blessing the offerings, presenting the offerings.
Then, we present a ritual cake an abbreviated if this is done in an abbreviated fashion, then it would be done the blessing of the ritual cake would be done in the same way that the inner offering is blessed which has been explained. And then we are making requests to the deity to eliminate obstacles to the practice and offering this ritual cake. So these are the preliminary offering and the preliminary giving of offering and the preliminary offering of ritual cake. So then having made the various offerings, we’re going to then proceed to meditate on the deity on ourselves as a deity Heruka. This is the actual method for developing the realizations of the practice.
That there are hindrances to the development of realizations and these are negativities and obstructions that we have. So, a method for eliminating, in order to gain realization, it’s necessary to eliminate negativities and obstructions, and therefore now comes the practice of the Vajrasattva Meditation. So in the context the meditation on Vajrasattva as a means of eliminating the negativities and obstructions, we make use of the four opponent powers. The four opponent powers being the power of reliance, the power of regret, the power of regret, the power of antidote, and the power of reversal. So the first part as is going to be presented here is the power of basis.
Power is power of reliance. Reliance, yeah, reliance rather than base. Reliance. So, this involves the going for refuge in mind generation of the awakening heart. Here, so therefore, this section of the text begins with going for refuge.
Now, it begins with, At all times, I go for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. This is the common refuge. Is the refuge of going for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha is common to Sūtra the perfection vehicles. But, this is a tantric practice, so we then go to uncommon sources of refuge. And, these are the Dakinis of the Secret Mantra Yoga, heroes, heroines, powerful goddesses, and the great beings of the Bodhisattvas.
So, this this is those who assist us in our practice of Tantra. And then, finally, in order to gain realizations, we go for refuge to our spiritual master. And this is to receive the blessings of the spiritual master and this spiritual master is the empowering lama of the practice. And then comes the within the mantra tradition, the mind generation, the awakening heart. So, we should we’re doing the practice for the sake of all sentient beings, that we should have no biases, that we should imagine all sentient beings equal to space, limitless sentient beings.
That we are going to engage ourselves in this practice for their benefit, to separate them from suffering, to establish them in happiness, that we’re going to practice this path, that we’re seeking to actualize Herukahood, that we’re seeking to become Heruka by practice of this path and thereby actualize Buddhahood and as a means to establish all sentient beings in that same state of Heruka. And this is the motivation of mind generation. I myself become Heruka for the sake of all living beings and then I will lead all of them to Heruka’s supreme state. So, we should as a minimum rec ite this mind generation three times, but we can do it more. We can do it five, six times.
We should do it until there’s some actual transformation in the mind. You know if we simply word-of-mouth, word-of-mouth, it has no power, has no potency. And this is not the purpose of what we are doing. Say it until there is actually some change that occurs in one’s mind. And then comes the actual practice of Vajrasattva, and this has been explained previously.
It’s a very abbreviated practice here. On the crown of one’s head on a lotus and moon disc is Vajrasattva with his consort both white in color, having each one face, two arms. Vajrasattva himself has six ornaments and the consort has five ornaments. He is holding a vajra and bell, she is holding a curved knife and skull cup. At the heart of each is a white HUM with the mantra of Vajrasattva surrounding that mantra rosary in a counterclockwise direction.
So, was mentioned, the male consort, the consort that is Vajrasattva has six ornaments and the female has five. The ornaments are necklaces, wearing necklaces, bracelets, earrings, three, a crown ornament, four. There’s a like a I don’t know what it’s called. Sometimes it’s made of cloth. It comes down across the front of the chest like a sash, maybe sash.
Yeah. Sometimes it’s made out of jewels. And so that’s five. Then, so the both the male and female consort have these five ornaments. Vajrasattva, the male consort has six ornaments which the female does not.
And this is the ashes that his body is smeared with white ash from the of the burnt bones of corpses. And the reason that he wears this sixth ornament and she does not because the white ash symbolizes the white bodhicitta and which she does not have. So from the the at the hearts of the female consorts, visualize at the crown of your head, nectars, white nectars begin to descend like pouring down eliminating all the negativities and obstructions within you. You become completely clear of all these negativities, clean. You become as clear as a crystal.
Then again, the body body fills up with the white nectar filling up, and this white nectar is all the realizations of the paths and grounds. It is the exalted wisdom of undifferentiated emptiness. So, there was we first had the power of reliance, then we have the power of regret that is to say awareness, acknowledging all our negative actions that we’ve previously committed. It should be thought of in this sense as a method to develop regret is as if one had just ingested poison in your stomach, for example. And this type of regret of having taken that poison even though it hasn’t affected you yet.
Then the determination, so that’s the second power. Then the application of the power of the determination to reverse. However, making a commitment to reverse from these previous negative actions for however long, one day, one month, one year. And then the application of the power of antidote, and this involves the actual recitation of the mantra, the Vajrasattva mantra. And then so it is by means of these application, applying well these four powers, one can completely purify all negativities and obstructions.
Maybe could you get the Vajrasattva recitations out of and we’ll pass them around and people can look at the mantra while we go through it. You could help her. Maybe you Okay. Okay. May I have one?
Thank you. May I have this Yeah. That one? Greg. I think it’s better.
Yeah. That’s good. So, the OM as has been previously mentioned is the represents the vajra body of the conqueror and is the entrance way in the mantra. Heruka is blood drinker. Samaya is commitment.
So Heruka is the blood drinker. Is? Blood drinker. Manu Palaya is protect me well. Palaya means protect, protect me well. So, if one were to protect one’s commitments well, then one would be protected well.
So then again Heruka, Teno Patitha and then this is asking Heruka to not stay at a distance from you but to remain close with to you. And then having asked Heruka to please stay close, is to remain firmly close to me, to always stay close to me. Then Supoṣyo Me Bhava we’ve asked Vajrasattva to remain near always but not only that to please be happy with me. Then, Anurakto Me is that we’ve asked to please stay near, to be pleased with me, to be happy with me, to take joy, to find, to be happy with me, to take joy in me, to be affectionate, affectionate, had affection for me. So, when we talked about Supoṣyo Me Bhava, we were addressing ourselves to Vajrasattva who was imagined at the crown of our head to be pleased with us, to be happy with us.
In order to that we you know we do this in order to ask that we increase all our excellent qualities, of the that we develop all the various realizations that we abandon what is all the various abandonments. So we’re making requests to oneself is making requests to Vajrasattva at the crown of one’s head. Then the next line of the mantra is siddhi in Sanskrit means powerful attainments, means oneself, and means to bestow. Bestow all the powerful attainments upon me. So the next line is Sarva, Karma, Suchame.
Sarva is all, Karma is here karma refers to activities. And then Suchame means complete. Here it’s referring to the four activities. Me means oneself. So, is requesting that one have all of the four activities such as pacification, increase, etc.
Four types of activity.