Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Khensur Rinpoche opens this 51-minute commentary with the motivating logic for entering secret mantra: one cannot bear the delay of the sūtra path while beings keep suffering. A verse from the root tantra of Heruka anchors the whole session — tantric practice rises or falls on keeping one’s commitments — and Rinpoche explains why the six-session prayer exists at all: its words act like a cane for someone who cannot rise unaided, jogging memory of everything pledged at empowerment. He covers the schedule (three recitations morning, three at night), the distinction between vows as things to abandon and commitments as things to practice, and the stakes: keep your commitments and Buddhahood in this life is possible; break them and the path’s potency is lost. The session closes by opening the first verse of the intermediate prayer — going for refuge from the heart to the Three Jewels. Suited to practitioners who have already received tantric empowerment.
File metadata (for organising)
File: Six Session Prayer 1a.mp3
UUID: fd696efc-5ee0-40fe-ba51-ef8ed6418bc0
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: 6 session guru prayer (Khensur Rinpoche)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 51.0 minutes
Words: ~2,469
And just like ourselves, all sentient beings on the influence of karma and afflictive emotions are forced to take rebirth within cyclic existence and experience the sufferings of disease, aging and death. And at the time of having achieved this wonderful human life that we all possess, a life by means of which affords us all the conducive conditions and the absence of inhibitory conditions whereby to practice the Dharma, we should seek to develop the kind hearted attitude which wishes to free all sentient beings from the troubles of their sufferings and to place them in complete happiness. And as a prerequisite to leading all sentient beings to happiness and freeing them from their suffering, that oneself must achieve a state of freedom from suffering and the achievement of great happiness. Therefore, for the sake of all sentient beings, that I must achieve a state of complete freedom from suffering and the establishment of complete happiness. But in order to achieve this state, if one were to make use of only the sūtra tradition, this would take an extremely long time.
But I simply cannot bear that length of time, I cannot tolerate that length of time while sentient beings are continuing to suffering. I must quickly as possible achieve a state whereby I can free all sentient beings. And therefore I am going to enter into the secret mantra tradition and by this means I am as quickly, quickly as possible attain perfect, complete, transcendent Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings. In order to achieve that perfected state as quickly as possible, the quickest method is the practice of the six session yoga. This is the main practice by which I can achieve that state and therefore with such a motivation, in order to benefit all sentient beings, I am going to listen to this present teaching and put it into practice and cultivate such a motivation.
According quoting from a a verse from the first chapter of the root tantra of Heruka. So taking and explaining this verse which is being quoted, the first sentence speaks about a yogi who is an extremely great meditative, one who is practicing both Sūtra and Secret Mantra, who has an extremely powerful practice of meditation. Big, practice and meditation. Big? Big?
Big? Meditator. Great meditator. Great meditator. Then whatever this great meditator may be practicing, the root of the practice in secret mantra is observing one’s words of honor, that is to say one pledges a commitment.
And the purpose of observing well one’s commitment is that one will quickly achieve the common, powerful attainment or even the supreme powerful attainment of Buddhahood. On the other hand, if one does not observe one’s commitments, though one has received the empowerment of the highest mandalas, then but still will not achieve any powerful attainment. So as to whether a yogi, a practitioner of secret mantra achieves powerful attainments or not, is determined in dependence upon whether or not he or she observes their words of honor or their observes their commitments. So I’m going to explain the prayer of the six session yoga and the essential need for this prayer is that through its practice one observes one’s words of honor with connection to secret mantra. Secret mantra, as was noted in this first line of this verse, is mainly concerned with meditation.
Of the three activities of listening, reflecting, meditating, secret mantra emphasizes meditation. So meditation is an activity which takes place within the mind. It’s a process of of considering, trying to ascertain the meanings, the object. And this is the essence of practice that one in the process of meditation ascertains the object and then meditates on it. Then here the word meditation could be translated as familiarize or to get used to the object.
In order that our mind be able to operate well in the course of our meditation, it’s necessary that it employs the factor of mindfulness, that we have to be able to think and consider well through our memory and mindfulness. We have had little relationship with secret mantra in the past, so it’s difficult for us to be mindful of the content of secret mantra. So not having this familiarization or relationship with secret mantra in the past. The purpose of the recitation of the six-session prayer is, during the actual recitation, to remind us of all the points which are meant to be thought about and considered, all the points which are to be thought about and held in mind. That is the words of the prayer act to jog our memory.
So an analogy would be in the case of an old person who sits down on the ground and They simply cannot get up like a youngster could. They have to get up independent of sometimes support. So they have a cane and slowly and depending upon that cane, they can get up. So in this analogy, cane is analogous to the words which are being recited. This is the old person cannot rise without relying upon the cane.
Likewise, it’s extremely difficult for us to remember the meanings and the various points which are to be kept in mind without these words. Therefore, in reliance upon the words, we can take into mind and reliance upon the words the various meanings and the various points which we are to be mindful of arise within our mind. So another analogy would be that many people here go to various meetings and they take, they make various notes of what they’re going to talk about, various points that they want to refer to during the course of the meeting and then they take their notebook along and during the course of the meeting they refer to their notes to jog their memory and therefore they’re able to explain and cover everything that they had meant to. Without these notes they might forget many of the points that they wanted to cover, they might confuse the order, etc. So this is a way of reminding, jogging one’s memory, covering everything that you, all the various points that you want to cover.
So in the recitation of our various prayers requires that not only do we mouth the various words, but simultaneously we are thinking about the meanings of the words. The mere recitation of the words is of not much benefit, but we have to be simultaneously remembering what these various words mean, what points they bring up. And by daily reciting these various prayers, we are continually going over the various points at which the prayers are indicating, the various meanings which they are trying to set forth and just as slowly we begin to hold the various words in our mind quite easily that we can jog our memory and bring forth all these points quite readily and in the course of our meditation all of these points and meanings will arise. So the prayer of the six session yoga is meant to be meditated on three times in the morning and three times at night. And simultaneous with the meditation, one recites the words of the prayer three times in the morning and three times at night.
Why is it that we meditate three times during the day and three times at night upon this prayer? So as was emphasized that this is the main practice of secret mantras, the six-session Guru Yoga, and that in actuality it should be meditated on six times during the course of the day — that is to say dividing the day into three parts and then each of those parts one would meditate upon the prayer and then dividing the night into three sessions or three parts and then three times during the course of the night this prayer would be recited. In a simple fashion it’s simply recited three times in the morning and three times at night. So in the course of having taken the vows of the bodhisattva, the vows of secret mantra and the four empowerments, one has accepted the practices of that which is to be cultivated and that which is to be abandoned. So we have already committed ourselves to the practice.
We have committed ourselves to observing the abandonment of the root downfalls of the bodhisattva vows. We have said that I will observe the nineteen commitments of the five lineages of the Victorious Ones, the five Buddha families. So the vows are expressed as the abandonment of various negative actions, whereas the commitments are expressed as the practices of various skillful actions. So it is the recitation of this prayer which acts to ensure that we are mindful of these two activities which we have committed ourselves to, that is the various practices and the various abandonments. Initially in the morning we, through recitation of the prayer, we come to understand what it is that we are to practice.
We come to understand what it is that we have committed ourselves to abandon. Then again during the course of the day, again reciting the prayer at, for example, noon, then again we come to understand I have, am I practicing what is to be practiced, am I abandoning what is to be abandoned. Then again in the afternoon, again coming to understand am I investigating, am I practicing that which is to be practiced, am I abandoning that which I have committed myself to abandon. And the same would hold true with the three sessions during the night. So in the course of this continual investigation as to our practice and abandonment.
If we see that in fact we are practicing in accordance with what we have accepted, then we can rejoice that we are not acting in contradiction to our various commitments. On the other hand, if we are investigating, if we see that we are not observing what we have committed ourselves to, then we can recommit ourselves to acting in accordance with what we have committed ourselves to. And then again during the course of reciting the prayer during the day, investigating while reciting as to whether one is actually fulfilling, observing what is to abandon what is to be abandoned, that is to say, if one is observing one’s vows as committed and investigating if one is observing one’s vows, abandoning what is to be abandoned, then one can rejoice. On the other hand, understanding that if one is acting in contradiction to this, what has been committed to, that one is incurring negativity. So what does the fault include through the non observation of those commitments of vows and commitments that we’d have accepted to observe?
That through not observing our vows, not abandoning what is to be abandoned, not practicing what was to be committed, then we will destroy the potencies of those vows by means of which we are able to attain Buddhahood very quickly. So the potency of those vows will be lost. But not only that, that the negativity created will create an obstacle for you to quickly attain Buddhahood. On the other hand, if we don’t incur any of the various faults, that if in fact we do abandon what was to be abandoned and we practice well what is to be practiced, then as it says that the secret mantra has the ability to extremely quickly bring us to Buddhahood, that we can in this very body, in the course of this life, achieve Buddhahood or if we don’t achieve that, we can achieve Buddhahood in the intermediate state or if we do not incur any faults in the course of our various lives, we will achieve Buddhahood within sixteen lifetimes. In the Sūtra tradition, in order to achieve Buddhahood, it requires the accumulation of the collection over three countless eons.
By means of the mantra, the tradition of secret mantra, one can achieve Buddhahood in this very life. What is the benefit of recitation and meditation upon a six-session Guru Yoga? That we have accepted to practice various practices, those being the commitments of the five lineages of the victors. We have said that we will observe these commitments each day. And by means of the prayer, it will be ensured that we will not forget all of the various commitments that we have made that we will not act in contradiction.
On the other hand, we have accepted to abandon various abandonments and that this will ensure that we will be reminded to cease committing these abandonments and actually abandon them. Essentially, essence of the recitation is to help us to gather all the various conducive conditions and begin to cease inhibitory conditions in our practice. So it would be difficult for us to make use of the extensive six-session Guru Yoga, but we can achieve our ends by means of recitation of the intermediate six-session prayer in eliminating our various faults and developing the excellent qualities. So, if you can recite the extensive prayer, then this is of greater benefit, but if you don’t have the time, then we can simply recite the intermediate six session yoga. Beginning with the first line, don’t know if you have the translation.
Beginning with the first line, the translation of the very first verse of the Intermediate six-session prayer. It says, From my heart I go for refuge to the Three Jewels. And the Three Jewels being the Buddha, that is the shore of the refuge, the Dharma, the actual refuge, and the spiritual community who assists us in going for refuge. And one goes for refuge from one’s heart, not merely from one’s mouth. So in going for refuge to the Three Jewels, one fulfills three of the six commitments with respect to Vairochana, that is to say, to go for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma, and the spiritual community.
But one goes for refuge because the objects of refuge are able to free us from the fears of the various bad migrations, the various sufferings of cyclic existence, but also one goes for refuge in order to free all sentient beings from their fears of the same sufferings. And then one generates the awakening heart and which which one seeks to free all migrators from suffering and to lead them to consummate happiness. In offering to free sentient beings from their fears, one is fulfilling the commitment associated with Ratnasambhava and the giving of love. And one observes the commitment of secret mantra in general to cultivate the awakening heart. And then the verse goes on to say that I will train in the conduct of the offspring of the victor and this involves the practicing of the six perfections by which one many faults are eliminated.