Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 52-minute subsequent empowerment of the Medicine Buddha, Kyabje Rinpoche establishes the essential foundations for tantric practice: bodhicitta as motivation, emptiness understanding as the means, and method combined with wisdom as the cause for generating as a deity. He explains why practitioners must first develop renunciation and a genuine grasp of emptiness before taking tantric initiations; without these, the practice cannot bear fruit. He then explains the particular power of the Medicine Buddha lineage—the seven Medicine Buddhas prayed fervently long ago to help all beings suffering from illness and disease, dedicating their enlightenment to compassionate healing. The empowerment proceeds through mandala offering, refuge and bodhisattva vow recitations, and concludes with visualization instructions for those approaching the practice for the first time.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2005-07-03 – 1B – Empowerment – KR.mp3
UUID: 680bb45a-3e45-4cd5-b476-3130abcffa86
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Medicine Buddha
Date: 2005-07-03
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,232
So if we’re going to talk clearly, what we’re doing in a when we’re practicing Tantra is to see ourselves or to become a a deity. This is what the practice entails. It entails meditation on the deity and in fact for us to become the deity. Now, we would When we are talking about this thing we have to understand what the cause for becoming a deity is, what the cause for becoming Buddha that we are meditating on is. Now if we compare it to what the cause for becoming a human in our next life is, then we could say that we could become a human in our next life by practicing ethics.
By practicing ethics, we attain a human rebirth. So practicing ethics is the cause for us to attain human rebirth. The cause for us to attain or to become the deity is we need emptiness and wisdom understanding emptiness and bodhicitta. We need the method and the wisdom. If we don’t have the method and wisdom together, then we cannot generate as a deity because those are the causes for the deity.
So we need to have these things in order to generate the deity. If we don’t have the bodhicitta, if we don’t have the method, then we don’t have the reason to generate as a deity. And if we don’t understand emptiness, then we can’t become the deity. We can’t see ourselves as the deity. So we need these two things.
They act as the cause for us to generate to be able to generate as a deity and to meditate on the deity. So the the way that these things work together is that the, compassion or the the bodhicitta is the motivation, is the reason for for doing this practice. So that’s the reason. Now the understanding of emptiness is is the how is how we can do this, because if we don’t understand emptiness, then we can’t generate ourselves or become the deity. So, in fact, tantric practice is having the bodhicitta motivation, seeing emptiness, generating ourselves as the deity and then practicing the paths.
If we do this, then we practice the paths until we attain enlightenment. This is what tantric practice entails. If we don’t have the causes for doing being able to do this practice, then we can’t experience the result. We can’t experience the result being we can’t become the deity, practice the paths and achieve enlightenment. So we need the causes in order to experience the result, and we need the we need the motivation as well, with motivation and the understanding of emptiness.
This is how Lama Tsongkhapa explained it. He said that we needed to to to have both these aspects, and then using both those aspects to to to be able to practice the practice the deity or generate the deity and then work towards enlightenment. So it’s the same way we think if I don’t do the work, then I won’t get the profits. At least we understand that if we don’t do the work, we won’t receive any any wages or any profit from us not doing work. It’s the same thing when we practice Dharma.
We may think, well, I’m not going to do the the the practice because there may be some danger. But if we don’t do the practice, then we don’t experience the results. We have to do the practice in order to experience the result. Okay. As explained by Tsongkhapa, he said that if you don’t do the the, the beginning practices, if you don’t do do the practice of renunciation and emptiness and bodhicitta, and you move straight on to the completion practices of tantric practice, then there’s a danger that you won’t have achieved either of these things if you do one the first other practices first and then move on to the tantric practices, then you’ll do them both well.
So it’s very difficult for us to actually do, times we practice. If we we there are many there’s many different initiations that go on, and we go around to different initiations. But in actual fact, for us to do the practice, we need to have the three things. We need to have the the mind of the deity. We do the mantra of the deity.
I’m gonna do say the So we have to we have read the text, we have to generate ourselves as a deity and we have to say the mantra. This is incredibly difficult for us to do because we don’t have an understanding of emptiness. But we’ve already taken initiation, so what we find is that if we practice renunciation bodhicitta and trying to understand emptiness, then our practice will become better and better. So before we take initiation, we should practice renunciation at bodhicitta and trying to understand emptiness. And then after we’ve taken initiations, if we keep practicing these things, then our then our Tantric practice will get better and better.
So what we are doing today is what is called the what we are doing today is called the mind, body and speech subsequent empowerment of the medicine Buddha. So, that is called a subsequent empowerment. And what we mean by subsequent empowerment is that it’s supposed to be taken after one has sat for an empowerment, a full empowerment. Now according to Lama Tsongkhapa, you aren’t supposed to take a subsequent empowerment until after you’ve taken a highest yoga tantra empowerment. So he said that if you haven’t taken this empowerment, then there is something that’s been done that is wrong by the the people sitting for the for the subsequent initiation and the teacher giving the subsequent initiation?
But what he’s actually referring to here is when we do the meditation, meditating on ourselves as the deity. So if you haven’t taken the highest yoga tantra initiation before this, then you should take this take this initiation or this empowerment as a blessing. And when you’re doing the practice, imagine the Medicine Buddha in front of you. When it becomes wrong, when it becomes not correct, is when we imagine ourselves as the Medicine Buddha having not taken this tantric initiation previously. So if you if you haven’t had this initiation previously, please take this as a blessing.
And when you visualize Medicine Buddha, do so as if he was in front of you. So this empowerment that we are doing today, or this subsequent empowerment, is the empowerment of the Medicine Buddhas. This is an incredibly beneficial and an incredibly important subsequent empowerment, because the seven Medicine Buddhas we will be referring to in the initiation, a long time ago, they prayed very fervently that they would be able to achieve enlightenment, to be able to help all beings with their illnesses and the diseases they encountered. They saw their illnesses and their diseases that people would encounter in the future. And in order to prevent that, in order to help those beings who are going to have these experiences, they prayed very fervently to attain Buddhahood.
So, what this means is that if they that after they attain Buddhahood, they their being was dedicated towards helping other beings who are experiencing suffering and diseases. And this means that if we pray to them fervently, then they can can bless us by helping us to get rid of our diseases and misfortunes because they had put in these fervent prayers before they attained enlightenment. So they they made these special prayers to help the ill. So before we start this initiation, we should imagine that Buddha House is the crystal palace of the medicine Buddha, that Rinpoche is the medicine Buddha, and that the mandala to his left has to the mandala to his left has been invited, the the the different medicine Buddhas, and they represented on the mandala. What?
Oh, sorry. My left. You’re right. Right. So the first thing is to ask Rinpoche to grant the empowerment.
And so if we can repeat after Rinpoche, And he says So please say it like this. Okay. We just jumped a bit. Sorry. So so we first will have to offer Mandala.
So first, This Mandala offering is on page one. Mandala offering is on page one. So now we’re having offers in Mandala, we now make the supplication prayer to the the lama to grant the empowerment. Take it three times. So your own you’re you have to say your own name now.
If your name’s Jimmy, say Jimmy. If it’s not, say whatever it is, and then repeat after after you said your name. So So that’s the end of the requesting to grant the empowerment. Okay. So the next thing it says is to offer the seven-limb prayer from from the specific prayer that was said by the Buddha.
But because that’s incredibly long, we’ll do the the normal seven limb prayer that we have three times. Do you need a prayer? It’s a seven limb prayer. Called the seven-limb prayer. So and so at this stage here in the procedure, we should take what’s called taking the bodhisattva vows.
Now, what we’re going to do is say a recitation of the bodhisattva and refuge prayer three times. At the end of these three times, if we’ve taken the Bodhisattva vows previously or we’re able to take those vows and know how to do it, then we should think, I have taken these vows. If we’re not able to do this, then we should make an or should make an aspiration that we will try and achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, generate that aspiration, and we should think this after the third recitation, get that thought in our head after the third recitation. She’s getting having trouble with the numbers. Okay.
So Okay, now, there are, in fact, 18 Bodhisattva vows. Now, if know what these vows are, we can take these vows and we can practice them and we can hold them, then we should try and take the vows. If we’re not able to do this, then we should make the aspiration that we will be able to. So it’s better if you can’t do them, if you don’t know what they are, if you can’t hold them, that you don’t take them, because there’s a danger of losing them. But if you can take them, then you should try then you should have the idea of what they are and that you’ve taken them in your head after the third recitation.
So the prayer starts off by saying to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. So the Buddha is the person who has shown us the Dharma. The the Dharma is the things he taught, the Sangha being the the enlightened community. So, we’re going for refuge. The next line says, we’re going for refuge to them until we achieve enlightenment.
So, that’s this is the first part of the prayer that we’re going to say. The second part of the prayer is that may anything that I do, may any positive actions that I do, whether it be practicing generosity or any of the other positive actions, may they act as a cause for me to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. Now, if we’re not taking the vow after we say this this prayer, then we should think very clearly, I aspire to be able to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. I I will do this. And then if we are taking the prayer, then we should have the idea very clearly in our heads that we have taken sorry.
If we’re taking the vows, we should have the idea very clearly in our minds. We have taken the bodhisattva vows, and we will hold them. So the Buddha is the person who has shown us the path that we can put into practice, the the way of the path. The the Dharma is the way of the the path or the way that he has shown us. And and the Sangha is the people that are helping us on on the path or the road towards enlightenment.
So please say after three times. So that is the second time. After the third time, Rinpoche will click his fingers. At this moment then, those who are taking the vows should think, I have taken these vows. Those who haven’t taken the vows should make an aspiration to be able to take the vows in the future and have the idea that they will work towards Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings.
So for those who actually thought in their minds they’re taking the Bodhisattva vows at that time, then, these should be protected. For those who didn’t have the idea and had the aspiration to take them, then they should have the idea that they are working towards enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. So now we should think that on top of our heads on a lotus, and on top of the lotus is a moon cushion or a moon, on top of that we should imagine the Medicine Buddha is there, like the Medicine Buddha in the thangka, who is sitting upright.