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 deconstructs the Heruka visualization with meticulous attention to mandala architecture: a 62-deity celestial mansion nested in four levels, each representing different aspects of enlightened body, speech, and mind. Rather than presenting the mandala as a finished whole, he builds it from the outside in—eight cemeteries and five-colored fire mountains, protective vajra walls, Mount Meru, and the central meditation chamber—walking through each layer’s significance. He opens by explaining the physical features of the father deity and consort (their eyes signifying compassion, attentiveness, and peacefulness; their ornaments carrying symbolic meaning), then moves into the full mandala structure, compares two established traditions (Dombipa and Luipa), and ends with a guided meditation on the complete visualization. Intended for practitioners who have already received Heruka initiation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1989-10-28 – 9B – KR.mp3
UUID: 1d385ae2-9c5a-402d-9a59-5502f54f06f0
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Heruka Commentary
Date: 1989-10-28
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,603
And then the three splendors of the mind which goes compassionate, majestic is not not exactly as it should be. It’s a kind of caring or kind of attentive. Second is attentive. And third one is peaceful. So why the first one is compassionate is because the deity’s eyes are long.
So long eyes represent peacefulness or compassionate aspect whereas round eyes represent wrathfulness, round eyes. So that’s why it is called the first one compassionate and why it is attentive or nyampa in Tibetan. Why it is attentive is because that eye is slightly open. And the third one, why it is peaceful is because the eyes are looking towards the consort. And so these are the nine causes of splendor and then the deity wears on the lower part, the lower scarf, the skirt made of tiger skin.
Why it has the tiger skin is because the deity is slightly wrathful. And wearing a rosary made of 50 wet human heads, and the string of the rosary is made of human intestines. So there’s a difference. With the father, it’s normally wet human heads, whereas with the mother, it’s dry. Dry human heads, the rosary made of.
Why with the mother or consort it is what I call dry human head is because of the tummo fierce flame. And due to that, the heads are dried up. And then the deity is adorned with six ornaments. What are the six ornaments? The first father already been explaining the past teachings.
The crown ornaments, the earrings, and the anklet bracelet, and so forth. And the sixth one here is the what are called crushed human bones, smeared all over the body. And why it has to be why it is white in color is because it represents the inner white bodhicitta And then in the sādhana where it says, directed toward the deity Heruka Bhagavan. So I think it’s not in the expression in the Sadhana. Directed facing direct or facing towards the Sadhana.
So this is reference the concept. Now we are visualizing the consort, the mother, and mother faces toward the deity Heruka. So the mother is one face, two arms, and two legs. And whereas in the it says the so-called three eyes. That’s three eyes and they are moving together in reference are naked and then the loose hair means the hair are long and hanging down and then adorned by what we call pieces of skull.
So this is to be applied with the upper which means the lower garment. So wearing a lower garment, which is with the fragments of the skulls of humans. And the mother mother yogini, she’s her left hand is holding the father from the neck, and in her hand she holds a skull cup filled with blood. And then the right hand in this aspect of the gesture of threatening and holding a curved knife. So this is saying if you do what I call harmful forces, if you don’t do good, then I can I will defeat you?
So kind of threatening a warning. And then the two legs So the the two legs which are the part lower than the knees, so these two of the consort are wrapped around the father at the level of the waist. Very in the nature of bliss, which means that just by mere touch of her, she can generate great bliss. And also she’s with compassion in the nature of having compassion, and she is adorned adorned with the five ornaments. And then whereas in in the text, it says the what I call on the top with the tresses of five hair knots.
So this is up on the top of the head, knotted. And then having a rosary of 50 human skulls mixed with crystal. And both the father and the mother are in the center of completely blazing fire. So if the celestial mansion one has visualized, whereas it has to be, it’s in the center of the celestial mansion, and one has to visualize oneself in the aspect of father and mother exactly like that picture. Can you visualize that or meditate like that?
So in the first normally, as in the case of person entering residence, so firstly one has to meditate on the celestial mansion and when that’s complete and after that then one arrives oneself in the aspect of the deity. So with this, the celestial mansion visualization, it’s quite difficult at the moment temporarily, it’s quite difficult at the moment. Still being difficult, one should try to recall, have a kind of continuous practice in this way when one normally recites daily the sādhana along with the sādhana meaning think that all there is now, there is the, as mentioned with the four, those four archways and complete with all the qualities and features. And that just to be able to do that and think that is quite enough for time being. And then at the center we think oneself in the aspect of Heruka with the kind of thinking that what which Heruka, the state of Heruka which I’m going to attain in future is now me in this in this state.
And with that, try to have as clear visualization as possible with the hands and objects, face and whole body. And this aforementioned, and underneath it, Mount Meru and outside the protection circle and outside that the fire mountains, outside that the cemeteries. All these should be thought as a form of Heruka’s wisdom of great bliss. And just don’t think that they are made of concrete, stones, or rocks. Instead think that they are in nature, they are great bliss of pure wisdom of yoga, formed or emanated into these different forms.
So in short, one has to think all the environment, the container is the nature of and all the contents, the center being in the nature of. Therefore, there is not anything impure. Everything is all pure. So this is so far we have visualized only the central deities, the father and the mother. And that’s the tradition of Master Dombipa, which is the author of the original Sadhana tradition.
And that’s the idea. But here with this particular of which you got initiation, Luipa, Master Luipa, so with that one, inside the celestial mansion, one has to visualize the deities inside the celestial mansion on top of Mount Meru. Does get more and implying it’s getting more complex. So inside the celestial mansion one has to visualize 62 deities of celestial mansion and they are to visualize in series of levels, and on top there would be first level where one visualizes a group or set of deities, and then on top of that would be another level where one visualizes another set of deities. And like that, there are about four It’s same like the mandala of elements down at one level, and then there’s another.
So here it’s about four levels. So as in the mandala, there’s the top part. So that top part, in this case, would be the topmost level where one generates Heruka father and mother on the top. So under that what I call the father and mother, there would be the second level, so meaning the first lower level, which is four petals, lotus petals. And on top of each lotus petal, there are four great mother of helper.
And they are the Khandroma and and the last one. So and the east is black. In the north is green. The left is red. Yes.
Then they are soft yellow. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Our four mothers. Some four mothers in those colors.
And in the third level, there are the eight father deities in a round circular formation. And with each of the father are the mother. So with in total, eight fathers, eight mothers, and each father and mother in union. And these eight father and mother are the deities of the mind circle circle deities. And all of them are both father and mother are blue in color.
And again, same like that on the fourth level are eight father with eight no. With eight mother in union, and they are they are the deities of the speech circle. And there are what I call red in color, and below them are the eight same like that, eight, father with eight, mother in union, and they are the they are the deities of the body circle. So the body circle, the same word meaning wheel, channel wheel, chakra, white in color. So on the four on the four doors are the four door guards door guards called and the dog face or and then the the old face and and then the second one is old faced.
Third one is dog faced. And the fourth one is pig faced. So the colors are same, like, the East is white, in the North is green, green, in the West is red, in the South is yellow. I don’t know what one. Oh, the first one is black in color instead of white.
And then the on the four subdirections, subdoors are the four consorts of the master of death starting with. First one is Shinjeetema. No. The one on which the master of death relies. Literally.
Shinjeetema. Shinjeetema. One on which the master of death relies. The last one. No.
So there are four, what’s called four Yamatema. Four Yamatema. So each specification is just, elaboration of the name. So now we got, what I call 62 deities of Heruka in this mandala, within this mandala, referring to celestial mansion. So these are the 62 deities of Heruka’s celestial mansion.
Hold on, is that 62? Have we got sixty two? Eight three of the body, speech, and mind. And first two: the father and consort. And four doors and four subdirection.
And four. 48 from each of the 16 of the body, speech, and mind. And then eight of the doors and subdoors, subdirections. So with body, speech, and mind. So in mind, each of them has eight fathers together with eight mothers and making eight or 16 with each of each of body’s.
Top of that, the eight of the doors and doors and some direction. And on top of that are the four great mothers. And the principal father and the mother. So these are the 62 deities within the. We have to visualize and meditate on them.
Can you meditate? Do you think you can? So one self is in the aspect of father and consort, and now these 62 are like one’s assistants or entourage. So all these are to to be one should think that all these the emanation of oneself in the aspect of Heruka, so therefore all these have relation with one’s continuum mind stream. It’s not something unrelated.
No. So maybe we stop here. So maybe instead of question answer, it’s maybe better if we meditate for two or three minutes trying to have a good visualization about the whole thing starting from the external cemeteries, fire mountains. Oh, so about three minutes. Not long.
Long. Mhmm. Five minutes. No. A whole lot in the case.
Yeah. Okay. No. Yes, Yeah. Now firstly, meditate on emptiness.
Now think that from that sphere from that from that sphere of emptiness, instantaneously, in just a momentary snap of a moment, instantaneously there arises oneself in the aspect of the deity with mother together with the celestial mansion and all the surrounding protection with everything. All together. So with that visualization, we have just roughly assumed in our visualization that instantaneously everything arise oneself as deity, mansion, and surroundings, everything. Now we have to go more into precise details of each of the visualization. So with the precise pinpoint visualization, if we are to start from most distant topics of visualization.
Drawing close and close to oneself, start this way, one thing, the most distant ones which are the eight great cemeteries, four in the four directions, four in the four subdirections, thinking and visualizing that there are those eight great cemeteries. So with each of the great cemeteries, each one has eight trees, eight fires and eight stupas. With each of them, can eight trees, eight fires, and eight stupas. In each of them are visualized and thin, there are accomplished Siddha practitioners who have attained realization powers and think in each of the cemeteries up the space there are clouds. And then with each of the trees, each of them are eight trees, eight fires, eight Siddha masters, eight clouds.
So think with each of the eight trees, there are eight worldly owners who are like guardians against harm for the practitioner. And inside, not meaning interior from those eight great cemeteries, closer to oneself from those eight great symmetries are the five colored five colored fire five colored fire mountains, white, red, green, yellow, and black. or blue, blue is right. And they completely fill all the space and the surroundings. And they have to think as the fire of the pure wisdom.
So inside, towards oneself from those fires, are the protection wheel or circle, which is a completely strong four walls like protection walls. Black in the East, green in the North, red in the West, and yellow in the South, and they are in the nature of indestructible vajras, completely extending from space to the ground. And there is never a possibility for outside harms to interfere with or reach oneself. And these are four sides, four walled, protection ring or circle, it would be good if one can visualize as vast and big as one can extending to highest of the atmosphere of the universe up to the place where the gods reside and to an end. Like so big that you can think whole universe can be fit or fitted into this, four world protection circle.
So inside this is completely empty. Now within this empty space there are whole piles of the four mandalas of the four elements, four great elements: water, earth, fire and air. So on top of these four great elements is the king of the mountain, Mount Sumeru, whose top is as if cut from the tip, meaning it’s flat. And it’s very vast and extending to enormous distance. On top of this is lotus with eight petals and at the center of this lotus with eight petals is the variegated vajra, a cross vajra, and at the hub of the vajra is another lotus with eight petals So at the center of this eight petaled lotus is the aforementioned square in shape, four doors, having four archways, having excellent rooftops with ornate banners, precious and banners, ornaments and everything completely with it.
And it’s in the nature of a crystal luminous transparency that inside if you look you can see outside and from outside you can see inside. Being in the nature of crystal transparency, one also thinks that it is in the very nature of light. It is like a light. At the center of this lesson mentioned, visualize a lotus on top of which is a round full moon sun disk. And on this sun disk, at the center, oneself, so emphasizing on oneself, oneself arising in the aspect of Heruka And as explained before, all the features, one face, four faces, 12 arms, and one consort, with two arms.
And as explained before, everything visualized is clearly oneself in that aspect.