Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 47-minute session, Kyabje Rinpoche teaches the visualization techniques of Heruka’s generation stage, emphasizing how each step mirrors the actual death process. Students learn the absorption practice—drawing deities into Lama Heruka, then into red light, then into the body—and why this accumulates merit. Rinpoche explains why practitioners must be reborn as humans on the South Continent, born from a mother’s womb, with the six elements intact to practice secret mantra successfully. The core work centers on meditating on emptiness as the dharmakaya while observing the dissolution stages that parallel the clear-light death, then rising as the nada curve in sambhogakaya form. For initiated practitioners.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1989-10-21 – 7A – KR.mp3
UUID: db6e9f75-18ae-4888-b846-d785024f1c39
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Heruka Commentary
Date: 1989-10-21
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,887
For the sake of all mother sentient beings, countless as the expanse of space, for their sake and particularly with an aim to place them to ultimate happiness where there would not be any suffering. For that purpose I must anyway attend the state of complete Buddhahood. And for that purpose I’m going to do the practice of the secret mantra. To do the practice, about I have to practice, therefore I’m going to listen to this profound secret mantra teachings. So thinking in that way, try to generate the motivation of bodhicitta.
So in trying to generate that motivation, let’s meditate for about three minutes. You all remember in the last teaching we have visualized in front of us in this space Lama Heruka. Lama Heruka is surrounded by the 65 deities of the Heruka mandala and also he’s also surrounded by all the Buddhas and bodhisattvas. Having visualized that, we have made offerings and we have also done the single pointed supplication and in this way, in the last teaching we have done the Guru Yoga practice. So we have visualized all those figures but we haven’t absorbed them into oneself.
Now think or visualize all the surrounding deities absorbing into one another and finally being absorbed into the central figure onto Lama Heruka. And Lama Heruka also afterwards is visualized as being melted into red light and that red light visualizes as absorbed into one’s body. And having entered one’s body, thinking now, all the obstacles and negativities are purified and within one’s mind stream all the realizations and experiences of the grounds and path have been filled. So this whole practice preceding the absorption is the accumulation of the collection. And regarding collection, it is of two kinds: collection of merit and collection of pure wisdom, or sometimes also called exalted wisdom.
So that part the practice to do with the collection of merits. For example, for us to be reborn as a human in the Jambu Continent, firstly, we should have enough collections of merit accumulated so that we become resourceful enough to be reborn again as human. So in the same way, in order to generate oneself into deity, firstly one should have accumulated enough what I call collection of merits. And that was the reason why before this practice we have finished doing the practice of collection So in the normal work of human life, at the moment we are human, alive, and then we die there is the thing called death, and after that there will be state of bardo or intermediate state, and after intermediate state there will again be birth or rebirth. So there are three things which are within our death, intermediate state and rebirth.
So in the same way with the deity practice, first there will be the coarse deity and that will dissolve down into clear light and that clear light is like the dead. And after clear light, one will arise into the of enjoyment body, sambhogakaya, and that’s like the bardo or intermediate state. And after that again, one will arise into aspect of deity and that’s like the rebirth, the nirmanakaya or emanation body. For us to be able to practice the secret mantra part in future lives, the basis which we should have is a human body. And that basis of the human body cannot be anything.
It should be definitely the human body of the South Continent, the Jambu Continent. And on top of that the requirement for us to have perfect basis to do the sacred mantra practice in future. On top of that, the other requirement is to be born from mother’s womb. So being human of the South Continent but not being born doesn’t fulfill the requirement. And also, on top of being born from mother’s womb, one should have what’s called the six elements.
So in short meaning, one should be this human of South or Jambu continent, should be born from mother’s womb, and should have six elements. So regarding the six elements, what are the six elements? They are the earth, earth, fire, water, and on top of that, the channels, the winds and the drops. So regarding the birth birth from womb, this has to be explained in the context of four different kinds of how beings can be born. So first is those born from womb, so that’s like normal humans who would be born from mother’s womb.
And then the second one, those born from eggs, would be like birds. And the third one, born from heat, would be insects. They are born in a high temperature place. There would be insects born just out of temperature reactions. And the last one, which is normally translated as magical birth, so that’s like mere thought of being born.
That being birthed takes place, for example, in the realm of the higher realm and in the hungry ghost, where just the thought of being born actually happens in the birth. We have already from before been visualizing ourselves in the aspect of with consort. So with consort is still in our visualization, ourselves being that aspect. And at the heart is the moon, on top of moon is syllable Hung complete with the crescent moon and the nada curve. So at this point one has to think with a kind of aspiring motivation, thinking I must, for the sake of all sentient beings, I must firstly attain the state of dharmakaya, the truth body.
And being able to attain dharmakaya, after that I can arise into sambhogakaya, the enjoyment body, and nirmanakaya, the emanation body, by which I can do the welfare of sentient beings. So at this point try to generate strong aspiration of motivation for longing to attain Buddhahood and sorry, longing to attain dharmakaya and thereafter to arise in the two formed bodies. So at this point, we are really starting the practice of generation stage, like in a normal case of human, the death takes place. So in substitute to death, we practice the dharmakaya, and after that, in the case, in substitute of intermediate state, practice the sambhogakaya or enjoyment body, and after that we arise into the aspect of emanation body, nirmanakaya, which is like the human again taking rebirth. So these are normally called the practice of taking three Buddha’s bodies into the path.
It is one of the most important practices. At this point, one is visualizing oneself into the aspect of Buddha, Heruka, emitting from one’s heart, from the Hung syllable, countless rays going to all the 10 directions and starting or touching all the environments and the sentient beings of the Jambu continent and the whole universe system. And having the lights having touched the environment and the sentient beings makes the environment the sentient being completely pure, cleanses the impurities, and after that visualize all the environment being absorbed into the sentient beings and sentient beings themselves are melted into light and absorbed into oneself. So with the gradual process of absorption, one has completely absorbed all the environment and sentient beings into oneself, and now think that the consort is absorbed into oneself and oneself also is absorbed from bottom and upper part of the body, all absorbed. And afterwards, the Hung syllable is left and that Hung syllable is mind.
Do you know the Tibetan Hung syllable? Can you do you have an idea how it looks like? How could we do it? Have you got any idea how it looks like? No.
Lower part is the or the vowel and then has the main letter, and top of it is the crescent moon, on top of which is a drop, and then there are nada curves. So just think that’s how the letter is comprised Another thing, the lower part of the syllable, the vowel u, absorbs into the syllable and into the crescent moon, and crescent moon into the drop, drop into the first curve, and the first curve into second, and second curve into third curve, and finally the last curve, the third one, itself becomes smaller, smaller, subtler, subtler, and finally transforms into emptiness. So in the beginning, when we have one has absorbed everything into oneself, oneself also lower and upper part into the Hung syllable. And that Hung syllable, one has to think is the great bliss or pure wisdom of Heruka. So one has to have an idea that that whom actually is oneself and it is the great bliss pure wisdom of Heruka.
In the normal process of death, which of course we will have to die, and in the normal process of death, there will be the absorption elements into one another. And firstly, the earth element absorbs into the water element, and then the water element absorbs into the fire element, and the fire element absorbs into the wind element, and finally the wind element itself absorbs into the consciousness, the subtle most consciousness. So in this way, each of the elements will have to cease their functioning and the whole thing stops. At the time of the death, when the earth element absorbs into the water element, at that time, the appearance the dying person has is the appearance of mirage like appearance. So as a kind of parallel to that process in this practice, one does the visualization or absorption of the lower part of the syllable u into the main letter, and then the main letter itself is absorbed into its upper part, which is like absorption of the earth element into the fire element.
And at that time, normally a dying person would have the appearance of a smoke like appearance. After that, the upper part of the Hung’s syllable is visualized being absorbed into the crescent moon, which is like they’re parallel to the process of absorption of the fire element into the wind element. At that time, a dying person would normally have an appearance of firebrand. So literally in Tibetan it’s called the appearance of flames in the space, which would happen at the time if you have a bunch of dry grass, what are called, squashed together and if you lit it, a fire, and if you throw it after that, the whole grass would disperse and there would be sparkling flames everywhere. So that’s the kind of appearance at that point of the absorption a person gets.
After that, when the wind element absorbs into the consciousness. And after the wind element when it absorbed into the consciousness, at that time the dying person would have appearance as if in an empty house there would be a single lamp burning. And the nada itself has three curves. The point of the first curve of absorption, the appearance the person gets is the appearance of a white appearance. So this is like during the pure autumn sky, if there’s a moonlight, so how would be the whole reflection?
That’s the kind of appearance a person gets. And during the second curve, the person gets the red increase appearance, which would be like in the case of a pure autumn sky pervaded by sunlight. And at the point of the third curve, a person gets appearance of the, what I call, radiant black or near attainment appearance. And at that point, the appearance is as if like a whole dome of darkness falling upon the person. And after that, that black appearance also disappears, and after its disappearance the person gets complete empty feeling, and it is the non-affirming negative, and it is like a kind of feeling or sort of contact with emptiness, and that’s a short duration which a dying person would normally get at that point.
And then the text of the sādhana, the mantra starts with So in Tibetan the meaning is at this point one has to remain in the meditative equipoise on emptiness and the meaning the mantra says I am the dharmakaya which has directly realized the emptiness by seeing that all phenomena do not truly abide. So at this point one has to remain in meditation on emptiness for a while. In the normal process of death, a person who has never practiced or hasn’t had any familiarity with emptiness subject, so for that person when he dies, of course, at that point of his death, he gets an aspect of the emptiness appearing, meaning he gets vision of the aspect of emptiness, but because he hasn’t got any familiarity, he cannot work or handle or make use of that. Whereas now, for us, because we are supposed to be practicing and have familiarity with emptiness, therefore at that point we should be able to understand that that is the real vision of emptiness and should try to have what I call the ability to make use of that very chance when the aspect of emptiness appears. And in that way, one has to stay meditation for a while.
Moment, are doing practice of Heruka, self generation. And by doing it, what we call all throughout our life, we are preparing for the moment when we have actual death time where emptiness would appear. So when death appears after when we die, should be able to face it and be able to identify the emptiness and afterward be able to realize the emptiness. So once at that point of death, if we are able to realize emptiness, then from that moment onward we will never have to take rebirth due to our actions and afflictions, due to actions and delusions. Means we will from that moment onward, in meaning from that moment onward we would be able to have complete control wherever we want to be reborn.
And this is very important practice, this point. So if one has a good understanding of emptiness, then at this point of the practice in self generation, one has to remain for a while in meditative deep meditation on emptiness, and within that deep meditation on emptiness one has to hold the pride that I am the dharmakaya, the Heruka, which in future I’m going to attain. As just previously mentioned, one has, what I call discharged or in other words one has sent forward a strong motivation that first I will, for the sake of all sentient beings, first I will attain the dharmakaya of Heruka, and having attained that dharmakaya of Heruka I will arise into sambhogakaya and nirmana kaya and then I will be able to do the welfare of other sentient beings. So as in accordance to the strong discharge or motivation I had, at this point one has been able to be in the dharmakaya state of Heruka. But one cannot remain in the meditation on emptiness to do the work for other sentient beings, Remaining in meditation on emptiness as dharmakaya is not helpful enough directly for other sentient beings.
So therefore at this point one has to again send forward an intention of arising into sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya, the enjoyment body and emanation body to do the welfare for other sentient beings. Now at this point in the self generation, would be the point where in the text it says, likewise, all the appearances being withdrawn and from the emptiness one’s mind in the form of a nada curve standing upright, white and very subtle, with white and red radiance, up in the space. So in meaning, this is saying because one has sent forward one’s intention, now one arise oneself into the aspect of what I call nada curve, white and with a red luster or radiance and standing up in the space. So this is being done as if in the normal process of arising from death into intermediate state. Like in normal cases of humans dying, after point of death there will be what’s called manifestation of the clear light death mind.
So that death mind is very subtle and it manifests its appearance, but it doesn’t remain in that death mind for long. It will transform transform into coarse form of what I call bardo or intermediate state. So in the same way here with the meditation on emptiness as dharmakaya, one doesn’t stay very long. Instead, after a short duration, one arises into the nada aspect, into the aspect of nada.
So at this point, again, one has to hold a pride thinking this is this nada curve is me, and it is me. It is myself in the aspect of Heruka, enjoyment body And again, think at that point, think that nada being one’s mind, most strong part of one’s mind in the aspect of nada, but what I call split a little bit of one’s mind which emits a Hung syllable very small. So both being one’s mind. And that small Hung syllable, very small, visualize it being close or next to the nada curve. This is called the middle.
This is called the finger. This is called the ring finger, and that’s the small finger. Different name to each of the fingers. Different names are given to each finger in the text.
Reciting these four mantras while snapping the fingers, those two fingers to the four directions. There are four So in the our sādhana, there are four mantras.