Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Kyabje Rinpoche presents detailed technical instruction on Vajrayoginī completion stage practices in this 44-minute session. He begins with precise posture and breathing work—a straight spine, specific hand placement, and tongue touching the upper palate—then teaches breathing meditation to purify the subtle energy channels. He presents two distinct methods: practitioners with lower faculty move winds down to the navel and secret places, cultivating blissful emptiness; higher-faculty students maintain simultaneous visualization of the entire body mandala and mantra garland throughout. He closes by introducing the 14 essential topics from the Chakrasamvara Tantra’s 51st chapter. For those who have already received Vajrayoginī initiation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1999-10-02 – 17A – Commentary – KR.mp3
UUID: 0a766da8-6150-44f8-a8b2-30d9f3aeb0b1
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Vajrayoginī
Date: 1999-10-02
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,832
# Vajrayoginī Commentary 17a 1999-10-02
**Collection:** Rinpoche Recordings — Vajrayoginī Commentary (1991)
**Duration:** 44.1 minutes
**Words:** 2,861
**Model:** Deepgram Nova-3
**Corrections applied:** 0
**Transcribed:** 2026-03-01 01:44
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The Westerners, they have a big nose, so it means a very long nose. It’s very easy for them to do. And the third one is one’s body should be very upright, or very straight. And by mentioning a very straight body, then it makes the channels very straight. And through this one, wisdoms can pass through easily. And then place the hands together at the level of one’s navel.
And next is slightly bend downwards. And the mouth and the teeth have been not really strongly pressed against each other, just leave it in their normal position. And then placing the tip of the tongue touching the upper palate, which is good for not feeling thirsty. And then meditating on the breathing meditation in order to purify all the faults of the channels. The breathing starts from three times from the left nostril, and then the all the wind passes through the channel called the Roma. It’s the left channel.
And its end is connected with the right channel, which is the Kyangma. And then the wind passes through it, just the three circles of that breathing. And then the next three is starting from the right nostril and then passing through the opposite direction three times. And then the last three is breathing through both nostrils, and then breathing it three times and bringing it, passing the winds, collecting at the central channel. So the purpose of doing this, as I said before, is to purify all the faults of the channels.
And after this one, one performs the mental recitation. And the way of performing the mental recitation is performed by the person with the low faculty and the person with the sharp faculty. And so during the verbal recitation, one has at one’s heart the reality source and so forth. Now during the mental recitation, one has to collect or dissolve all reality and the moon mandalas, and upon it sees all the body mandalas—the 32, the 24 of the body, speech, and mind, and eight of the eight sense powers, and then the four deities of the four cardinal directions, and then principal deity and the indestructible drop.
And then from there, they dissolve into the nada and so forth. And then one visualizes first one’s body. Externally see all the figures of the body, but internally, it’s empty. And then at the center of the body sits the central channel, and its tip, its upper tip goes towards the crown and then comes to rest. And then its lower tip is four inches below the navel.
And at the center of the central channel, I visualize the reality source. And imagine that the central channel has four features. It is straight like bamboo and then soft like lotus petals and a very rich deep red color and very clear and bright. So through this, one is in meditation. And so the wind from the lower tip collects slightly upwards. And then so the wind from the lower tip collects upwards, and then the wind collects downwards from the upper tip of the channel.
And by combining those two, pressing, and then which causes the reality source, moon mandala, all these visualizations, the mandala been moved towards the navel. Or if one wants to produce the experience or produce the bliss, then all this been placed towards the mandala and so forth. Mandala has been placed at the secret place. And while doing this, one takes a breath, and along with the breath, one swallows one’s saliva without any sound. Very like this.
And then imagine that saliva presses the mandala and reaches towards the secret place now. And then one closes the door of the lower tip. And through this, by pressing the winds from above downwards, which causes both the lower winds come out, collects at the navel or secret place. And then by pressing, imagine that both the lower and the upper have been collected. They are pressing in the middle of it. They’ve been—all the reality source and so forth.
And so that breathing is called the vase breathing. The vase, V-A-S-E, vase. And so in this, then one is maintaining all the winds within it, and not letting it pass outside. And so all the reality source, moon mandala’s mantra and the BAM syllable are inside it, so all the mandala is within it between those two.
And then imagine that by, and one single-pointedly focuses on the four joyous wheels. Four joyous wheels are spinning. They are spinning and also focus on the BAM syllable. And through this, by maintaining on it, one gains or one experiences the bliss, and that bliss realizes the emptiness, and on it, one being on a meditative equipoise or meditation on blissful emptiness. And maintain on this meditation until you feel uncomfortable.
And when by maintaining all this meditation, whenever you feel or once you feel uncomfortable or physically uncomfortable, then slowly let the wind pass through. But don’t let the wind pass through the mouth. Just pass it through the nose. So maintain on this meditation again and again, cementing this meditation and fully ties, and let the wind pass outside, and then have a rest and then start the meditation again. So again and again. So by repeating it many times, this is the way of meditating on the first incidental completion stage.
And then when one performs the mental recitation. And to do this mental recitation, one again being on a meditation on that breathing is called the vase breath. And then by meditating on it, so at the navel, there is the reality source on the moon and then the mantra garland in the center of the BAM syllable. But not the body mandala because body mandala has been purified or been dissolved during the earlier practices. So it’s only reality source with the mantra garland, and inside it is the BAM syllable, and that BAM syllable is one’s mind. And being on that meditation, imagine that one’s mind, the BAM syllable, one BAM syllable reads the mantra. And then through this visualization, read or imagine the mantras five times or seven times or as much as one could.
And it’s likewise like before. Whenever one feels uncomfortable, then take a break and then perform it again. During this mental recitation, one should not move lips or tongue. And then so after the mental recitation, then one—now what one performs is that during the mental recitation earlier, we have placed all the reality source either at the level of the navel or at the secret place. And then after the mental recitation, now one collects all reality source at—from those, and placed it at our heart. So during this, after the mental recitation, it comes to second incidental completion stage.
And so during this time, so as we said, when one takes all the reality source upwards at the center of one’s heart or one’s body, and so the central channel is still there. Its lower tip is four inches below the navel, and the upper tip of the channel is at the crown, at the forehead. And then to do this one visualizes—one, at the tip of the lower tip of the channel, situated is the red bliss wheel. And imagine it spinning anticlockwise. And by spinning of that wheel, it produces or experiences the bliss. And by feeling the joy, then suddenly it moved. By spinning it, it suddenly moved upwards and reached at the heart level. And then by this, it produces joy and bliss.
And so it also produces bliss at heart. And then there is a white bliss wheel at the tip of the upper tip of the channel at the forehead. And that spins anticlockwise. It’s very bright, white as the moon, like a moon, a white moon. And which spins, but spinning of it, it travels. Now one has the appearance or one has like a feeling of emptiness. And then which travels upwards at one’s crown, and then passes down through and moves down towards the central channel and gradually it mixes at that red bliss wheel which we placed at the heart from the bottom. And then by mixing it together and gradually, then they mix each other and gradually becomes smaller, smaller, and smaller, and finally, it being forms the emptiness. And by forming it empty, one being—and one should be on a meditation on that emptiness for a while. So this practice is the practice done by the person of low faculty.
During the verbal recitation, one is not focusing on the mantra garland reaches at one’s heart. Where one focuses is that during this moment, during the verbal recitation, one is the Vajrayoginī, generated as Vajrayoginī. And at the center of the central channel or at one’s heart, has visualized all the entire reality source along with the body mandala, 37 deities. And those mantras are placed at the heart of the principal deity because mantra are circle of the moon mandala, and the edges of that are situated the 32 deities. And then inside it is the four cardinal deities of the four heart channels. And the center is the principal deity, the indestructible drop. So you are visualizing the mantra garland at the heart. At the heart of the principal deity is the reality source, moon mandala, and the BAM syllable surrounded by the mantra garland. So you’re focusing on the mantra at the heart of the principal deity of the Mandala.
And the way of this practice performed by the sharp faculty is that during the mantra—so performed by the sharp faculty. So during the verbal recitation has all the forms, central channel, all the body mandala, the reality source, body mandala, and so forth. And then so it’s likewise, it’s the same practice is done here, like taking all the phenomena or the reality source and the body mandala from one’s heart towards placing either at the navel or taking it down towards the secret place. And way of taking is done same as before, like the wind coming bottom wind come upwards and the upper winds pressing downwards, and through this it takes and like taking and swallowing the saliva and so forth. And the difficulty while visualizing the central channel is all the reality source, the moon mandala and all the body mandala. And then in the center of it is the principal deity.
So the sharp faculty visualizes and focuses on the center of the principal deity, the heart central channel of the heart of the principal deity of that body mandala, and forms the reality source of the mandala. And then focusing on the four wheels of that the principal deity, the heart of the principal deity, and by focusing, the practices is the practice of practicing the first completion stage. And then focusing on that mantra within it is the mental recitation. And then performing heart, the principal deity at the heart forming the emptiness. And then this is same as before, the channels in the body inside is the empty with the central channel.
And then does the two bliss wheels. One comes at the crown and then the red at the tip of the lower channel. At the lower part. And then by spinning it, they come upwards and downwards, and then mixing it together and then continues with that becoming inseparable, and then gradually dissolve and form and being on the meditation on the emptiness. So by putting the reality source, placing it or putting downwards at the navel or the secret place doesn’t mean towards the navel and the secret place of the external Vajrayoginī, not the principal deity of the body mandala.
So now we’ll briefly talk, go on, go through the 14 essential topics. So the 14 essential topics, which is the 51st chapter of Chakrasamvara Tantra, the root Chakrasamvara Tantra.
The first essential topic is the description of clothes and the mudras. So here, in the sense, the clothes, the costume—the clothes does not mean the clothes which we normally wear. Here the clothes means towards the mandala or installation, the mention of the Vajrayoginī, the phenomenal source. And it’s been called the clothes and five mudras and so forth. So five mudras are all those ornaments made out of bones, and they’re holding khaṭvāṅga and so forth. So these.
And the second essential topic is the wisdom and the limbs. So here, the wisdom here refers towards the Vajrayoginī herself and the limbs or the yab ne in Tibetan refers towards the khaṭvāṅga, the holding of that Khatvanga. And the third section refers towards the protection circle. And also refers towards the practice of collecting merits, taking refuge, and so forth.