Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Venerable Thubten Dondrub explains the role of permissions and initiations in Tibetan Buddhist tantric practice. He begins with lung—a transmission permission needed to recite mantras or study texts—and traces its lineage back through qualified teachers. He then distinguishes jenang, the initiation to practice a deity visualization, from wang, the empowerment specific to highest yoga tantra. Throughout, he emphasizes that effective practice depends on genuine devotion to the guru, understood as an expression of the Buddhas working through a qualified teacher. He walks through why tantra is called the resultant vehicle: practitioners visualize themselves as enlightened beings now, not merely as a cause for future enlightenment. He addresses the karmic weight of tantric vows, noting that breaking them carries far greater consequences than breaking lower vows, and recommends daily Vajrasattva practice for purification. Finally, he clarifies that the heart of practice is concentration on the deity visualization and the death-process meditation, not mantra recitation alone, and discusses the main yidams—Yamāntaka, Heruka, and Guhyasamāja—within Gelug tradition. Suitable for practitioners new to tantric Buddhism or those considering initiation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 20.mp3
UUID: 04c60f67-a2e7-4b71-b66e-cd8c8a1bace4
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: z done but no sheet no info (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.4 minutes
Words: ~4,975
Subsequent something or other. So this is more like a permission to practice the deity to do it with the visualizations, to recite the mantra. The most basic thing you can receive is what is called a lung, same word as lung but it’s a different spelling. Lung means permission, so you can receive a lung to recite a mantra. Or you can also in the Tibetan tradition they recite lungs of texts.
It is said that even to study a text, for there to be more benefit from the study of a text, it’s good to receive the permission to study it from one’s teacher or a qualified teacher. Whereby they just read it, they simply read the text aloud and you listen to it. And that gives some blessing, some empowerment, some energy in the mind to understand it more. Because the person who gives that has to have received that lung from a qualified teacher before, back and back.
You just can’t—there are jokes about this, I believe—but it has to go back and back and back. So, for example, Kangyur Rinpoche is also called Kangyurpa or Kangyurpa Rinpoche because many years ago, I can’t remember when, he’s one of the few Lamas who has recited the entire Kangyur. He’s given the lung. He did it at Sera, I think, many years ago, maybe somewhere else.
Dharamsala? Was it? Yeah. Reciting all the Kangyur so that people could receive the lung, the blessing. The Kangyur, all the sutras.
Yeah. The Kangyur is the sutras. The Tengyur is the tantras and their commentaries. The Kangyur is the sutras and their commentaries. The Kangyur, the Tengyur.
And the Tengyur is the tantras and their commentaries. The Mahāyāna Sutras. So there’s that tradition. So you can get these lungs for reciting mantras, and then beyond that there’s what is called the jenang, which is what we call an initiation or a permission to practice visualizing a deity, reciting the mantra and the other practices connected with those deities. Wang?
No. We have to get to that one. Coming next. So with the jenang of Kriyā tantra, there’s only jenangs. There’s nothing else in Kriyā tantra.
In that, when you receive that from a teacher, this usually involves like, what happens in these jenangs and various kinds of initiation, that the person giving it is supposed to be visualizing themselves as that deity. You’re supposed to imagine in the ceremony, you yourself supposed to imagine you can see them as that deity, and then you receive the blessing to do that practice and recite the mantra. All right. So for that to work and to work effectively, you have to have that devotion. You have to think that this being is the deity.
And the only way this being can be the deity is because he’s a Buddha, because a Buddha can manifest as any deity. So the more you have that devotion, the more one receives the blessing, the jenang, the more you are initiated into that deity’s mind, the more you’ve come to make some connection with that deity’s mind. And having made that connection with a deity’s mind, then by doing the practice, those qualities develop more and more in you. And of course, this I haven’t mentioned, but this is why do we take initiations, lungs and wangs? It’s to practice them, right?
Not to collect them. Like many people, I’ve got this one, I’ve got that one, I’ve got that one, I don’t know who gave me that one, but I’ve got it three times, and I’ve got that one ten times, but don’t practice them. The reason for taking initiations is to practice the deity, to do the practice, to generate the quality in one’s mind in order to become enlightened for the sake of all sentient beings. Right? So for, again, for the effect, one has to have that devotion to be able to see somehow that this person is the deity, even if they’re not, even if the guru isn’t a Buddha.
But if one, from one’s own side, one is able to believe they are and see them as the deity, then it works. This is the wonderful special quality of faith and the mystical workings of the Buddha. Because in the teachings it says that if the teacher is qualified, has the qualities, even though they’re not a Buddha, and you develop, generate devotion to them as a Buddha, then the Buddhas will enter that being and bless you. Right. They will protect you and bless you and guide you.
It’s a dependent arising, depending on the fact that the teacher does have qualities and is trying to guide one on the path. And from one’s own side, one wants to be guided, one wants to follow the path. And in dependence on having created the karma to meet a true spiritual master, to be guided on the path, in dependence on all those things, and in dependence on the fact that the Buddhas are there wanting to guide us, and they need a vehicle to guide us because we’re too obscured to directly contact the Buddhas directly. They need a vehicle. So in dependence on those factors coming together, even if the guru isn’t a Buddha, depending on those factors coming together, the Buddhas—the more you get that.
Yeah. Because the Buddhas are everywhere. They’re here right now. If you—oh, maybe I shouldn’t say this. Anyway, even listening to me, if you think I’m just this stupid old guy rattling nonsense, that’s all you hear.
If you think I’m a Buddha talking, if you really think that, then you’ll hear a Buddha talking. But I’m not saying I am. I’m not a spiritual master. I’m not qualified. I’m not even claiming anywhere near, so please.
I’m not saying that. But from your own side, if you hear with a pure mind, you hear with pure teaching. Doesn’t matter who says it. If one has the wish to hear the Dharma, he will hear it. But if you don’t, even if the Buddha is talking to you, but you don’t really have the right motivation, you won’t hear a Buddha.
You’ll just hear what you want to hear. You’ll just hear some deluded person. You’ll see some deluded person, and you’ll hear deluded speech because that’s all your mind can perceive. So, anyway, in tantra, for it to really work, it depends on this devotion, seeing as much as possible, seeing the guru as the Buddha. But it has to be based on really checking out the teacher first, not just sort of blindly wanting a guru and pretending, oh, this person is wonderful because I want a guru, and I want this, and I want that, and whatever.
One has to be very careful with this. So then on the basis of guru devotion, there is the practice of what is called guru yoga, and so yoga means union. So on the basis of guru devotion, you try to unify the mind, your mind, with the Buddha’s mind, with the guru’s mind, because the guru’s mind is Buddha. The guru’s mind is the dharmakaya, and we want our mind to become dharmakaya. So the way to do that is to practice guru yoga.
So the main way of doing that is that, particularly in highest yoga tantra, but also in Kriyā tantra, when you practice the deity, when you visualize the deity either in Kriyā tantra as an external deity, but when you visualize in highest yoga tantra, when you visualize yourself as the deity, who is the deity? It is the guru. You are visualizing yourself as oneness. You are visualizing yourself as being the deity, as oneness with the deity, and the deity is oneness with your guru. There is no separation.
This is guru yoga. Yeah, bringing these three together in one mind, your mind, your own pure mind, the deity’s mind, the guru’s mind as one inseparable entity. That’s what we’re trying to do if one is trying to practice highest yoga tantra. And in fact, this is the main thing. There are many main things, unfortunately, but this is about the main thing.
If one can do that, then all the other stuff happens. The more one is able to develop this pure devotion to the guru and develop this guru yoga where your mind becomes inseparable from the guru’s mind, then everything, enlightenment comes immediately. You don’t have to do all the other stuff, because all of that will come through the power. Because the guru is Buddha, and if you can unify your mind through the power of devotion with the guru’s mind, you’re there. And this is the interesting thing about visualization.
Like, for example, when we have anger and loathing towards someone else, seeing this person as bad, person is bad, ugly, evil, what we’re seeing, in fact, is our own mind. What we’re looking at, in a rough way of speaking, because I don’t know how to speak in a very subtle way, but we’re not looking at another person. We’re just looking at our own ugly mind. If you look with some affection and compassion and whatever at another person, you’re seeing the beauty of your own mind. Yeah.
So when we try to visualize ourselves as a deity, that’s our mind. If we see ourselves as an enlightened being, if we create this visualization, then we are creating enlightenment with our mind, or we’re creating at least the conditions for it to arise. If we think ugly, we see ugly. If we think pure, we see purity. Right?
This is something that Lama Zopa Rinpoche talks about a lot, is that because of our karma, the more deluded our mind, the more deluded everything else appears. The more suffering we see, the more impure our mind, the whole world is so impure. People look terrible, evil. The whole world looks ugly to us when we’re caught in our own very deluded mind. When we purify our mind, we purify our perceptions.
So this is what we’re trying to do in tantra. We’re actually trying to hold onto this pure appearance of oneself and others right now. So this is why tantra is also called the resultant vehicle. Ordinary Mahāyāna Sūtra path is called the causal vehicle, where tantra is called the resultant vehicle because one is imagining experiencing the result, Buddhahood, right now and sort of forcing all the things that cause the result to come about quickly by imagining the result right now, but not imagining the result in a very arbitrary way, in an artificial way, but on the basis of having renunciation, wisdom, and bodhicitta, and the blessings of the guru, especially the blessings of the guru. So to do these practices one has to be initiated into them or empowered.
Particularly with highest yoga tantra, one has to receive an empowerment, which is in Tibetan called a wang, which means power, actually. Literally it means wang. Wang means power, so we translated that as empowerment. Again, a wang, an empowerment is a dependent arising, depending on the quality of the guru and his ability to visualize and his training and experience in that practice, and depending on our devotion and our ability and our devotion, our wisdom, our bodhicitta, our understanding of emptiness, our faith, all these things coming together, depending on that dependent arising, then there is an empowerment taking place. One’s mind is empowered by the guru’s mind to be able to see oneself as a Buddha within this celestial mansion.
This is kind of unique to highest yoga tantra, not only visualizing oneself as the deity, but as a deity within the celestial mansion. This only occurs in highest yoga tantra. You enter the mandala, which means like entering into the mind of the Buddha, which is entering into the mind of the guru. The mandala is the mind, the body and mind of the guru, and you enter into that. So you do that initiation, you enter into that state in order to practice it in one’s daily life, to be able to try to enter that all the time, to be in that state all the time.
To have pure view all the time, to be in a state of realizing the emptiness of all existence all the time. In order to visualize oneself as a deity, we have to have concentration, and we have to have some understanding of emptiness. If we think this is really me, this is me, this body, this is really truly me, this inherently existing me, there’s no way to visualize yourself as a deity properly. Properly. With a lot of effort, can kind of create this image that we kind of stick somewhere, but this thing keeps popping.
It’s there. It’s me visualizing something else. But if we can dissolve into emptiness, this heavy sense of me, this body, this mind is me, you dissolve that in emptiness. Out of that emptiness, out of that emptiness arises the deity. So you can’t just do that by reading the text and getting the empowerment.
One has to have studied the tantras, the sutras. Right? One has to have some renunciation to let go in the first place, and one has to have some understanding of emptiness. But if one has that and one does the tantric practice, these things become very powerful. Together, they become very, very powerful.
And by doing the tantra, it also, and trying to do these practices, it inspires one more to practice sūtra. Yeah? Because I can’t just do it. It just doesn’t happen. So I have to understand emptiness more.
If only I could understand emptiness more, I could meditate on it, and I could become the deity, this empty deity. If you read in the Mandala magazine, the experiences of these two people were Roger Kunsang, who’s an Australian, and Paula, who did this long retreat, this tantric retreat. They said their main realization from it was the importance of practicing the lam rim. Because there are also so many difficulties in doing these tantric practices. If you don’t have the lam rim teachings to face these difficulties, you give up.
So the more lam rim one has, the more tantra works. And the more tantric understanding and experience you have, the more you want to practice the lam rim. And they just feed each other together. And the more you try and practice tantra and see, although I can’t do it, that it could work if only I was more renounced, if only I had more renunciation. Right?
So by practicing tantra, it encourages one to be more renounced. If only I could concentrate on this, it would work. Why we can’t concentrate is because we’re not renounced. We’re attached to all these silly things. But even at our level, we can get some taste of tantra.
That’s why Lama Yeshe and the other Lamas teach it. One can get some taste a little bit, and having got that taste, you want more. But the only way that taste will increase is not doing tantra more, but doing sūtra more. And if one does more sūtra practice, more lam rim practice, then the taste of tantra will increase. So just one thing I’d really like to emphasize, or maybe I already have, but when one enters into tantric practice, it’s like you’re entering—even though, how do you say?
It’s like we’re entering into another world. I mean, it doesn’t—I’m not saying something wonderful happens like that, but we’re trying for that to happen. But when one enters into tantra, one is entering into a new level of commitment to the dharma. Particularly what we’re entering into, not only we’re entering into this incredibly important relationship with the guru. Because whenever you take an initiation, a highest yoga initiation, then that person becomes your guru without any choice.
Yeah. And the karma created with that being is very, very powerful. It’s the most powerful karma of all, good and bad. One negative thought towards a person who has given you a highest yoga tantra initiation, and you can’t mention the results of that. All right?
As they said, Vajrapāni would vomit blood mentioning the karmic results of that. Basically when we enter tantra what we should be aware of is that we’re entering into a new level of karmic commitment. Right? When you take vows, you create more good karma than a person without vows, vastly more, infinitely more good karma. Like, someone has a vow of not killing and someone doesn’t have a vow of not killing, both don’t kill.
But the person who doesn’t kill with the vow not to kill accumulates vastly more merit than the person who doesn’t have the vow. Similarly, the person who has got the vow not to kill, if they kill, they create much more negative karma because of the vow. So then, when you take the bodhisattva vows, I haven’t mentioned this, but in order to practice highest yoga tantra, you have to take the bodhisattva vows because that’s why tantra was taught. It’s Mahāyāna. It was taught for bodhisattvas who can’t bear the suffering of sentient beings.
So the very basis of it is the bodhicitta thought. There are two levels of bodhicitta. There’s what is called the wishing bodhicitta, the first level, and then there’s the engaging bodhicitta. So the wishing bodhicitta is like the thought to go on a holiday, where you decide—maybe one has often thought, I will go to Nepal for holiday or I’ll go to Greece for a holiday, I’ll go to France for a holiday, just a vague thought. But then you get to the point where you think, I will definitely go this year.
I am going to Greece, Nepal, France, or wherever. There’s no doubt this time I’m going. So it’s not just an ordinary wish, but it’s this definite wish. Then on top of that—that’s like the wishing bodhicitta. One has made this definite wish to achieve enlightenment.
Not messing around anymore. Definitely going to do it. But then engaging bodhicitta is actually doing the practice just like definitely decided to go to France or Greece or Nepal. Then actually going there, flying there, is like the engaging bodhicitta. You’re actually involved in doing it.
So when you take Kriyā Tantra initiation, you only have to take the wishing bodhicitta vows. That is, you have to have refuge, you have to have taken refuge, and you have to take the wishing bodhicitta vows in order to receive a Kriyā tantra initiation. The one exception is if you take the full initiation of Thousand-Armed Chenrezig. It is somehow, as far as I know, the only full kind of empowerment in Kriyā tantra. Even then it’s not really—is it an empowerment?
Yes, it’s a wang. It is actually an empowerment, although there isn’t the mandala you visualize. But there is an empowerment, Kriyā tantra empowerment of Chenrezig, Thousand-Armed Chenrezig, and in that case you have to take the engaging bodhisattva vows for that. But in all highest yoga tantra, you have to take refuge and the complete engaging bodhisattva vows. Right.
Right. Yeah. That’s the engaging—oh, there was a mandala. Yeah. Right.
Right. Sure. So that definitely involves the bodhisattva vows. So with every highest yoga tantra initiation, there is definitely—you have to take the engaging vows, because that’s the very basis of tantra. When we create negative karma against our ordinary vows of the pratimoksha level, the vows of individual liberation such as the five lay vows, the refuge vows, the five lay vows, or the eight Mahāyāna precepts—then the vows of monks and nuns are all part of the pratimoksha vow of individual liberation.
A certain level of karma is created. When you break the bodhisattva vows, they say it’s like a thousand times worse than breaking pratimoksha vows. And if you break the tantric vows, then it’s thousands of times worse than breaking the bodhisattva vows. So when you take tantric initiations, we enter a whole new level of karma. So it’s something very important to be aware of.
But of course, I think maybe I shouldn’t modify this too much, but I think this level of karma works specifically when we really have entered the mandala. If one has really entered the mandala, that is, one has actually been able to visualize it in the right way, then you break the tantric vows, and that is really serious. But, of course, everything can be purified. But it’s not easy to purify things, but they can be purified.
That’s why in tantra, if you’ve taken the highest yoga tantra initiation, it’s very important to do the Vajrasattva practice every day, because that helps purify broken tantric vows. The practice of the prostrations to the thirty-five Buddhas purifies bodhisattva vows. And Vajrasattva particularly purifies tantric vows. I think maybe that’s all I have to say. I mean, there’s huge amounts of things about tantra to say, but these are some, I think, some of the main points to know if one wants to practice what it’s about.
Many people think that practicing tantra is about reciting mantras. This is actually a very secondary aspect of tantra. In fact, it explains, like, when you’re practicing generation stage tantra, the main thing, the two main things is generating the visualization of oneself as the deity with the divine pride. Doing that. And the other main thing is doing the death process meditation, which is called taking the dharmakaya meditation, as it’s sometimes called.
These two are crucial. So it explains that when you get to the point in the sadhana, in the meditation practice, where you visualize yourself as the deity, you try to concentrate on that for as long as possible with the divine pride, the clear appearance, for as long as possible. That is the heart of generation stage tantra, that practice of concentrating on oneself as the deity and trying to develop single-pointed concentration. So when you can’t do that anymore, you recite the mantra. The mantra is when you can’t concentrate anymore.
It’s kind of when your mind collapses, you recite the mantra as the next best thing to do. It’s not the main thing. Many people do retreats, right, you know, blah blah blah blah blah blah, mumbling mantras as though that’s it. I’ve said a hundred thousand this, I’ve done this mantra, I’ve done this retreat. Big deal.
Sorry. It’s not such a great thing. It would be much better to try and spend a few minutes doing the concentration practice and the dharmakaya meditation. These are the heart of the practice. And of course, the reason the mantras are recited is this is in order so that one can do in the completion stage practice what is called verbal isolation practice, which I won’t go into, but it’s for that purpose, which is something much more profound than reciting mantras out loud.
So maybe I’ll stop here. Oh, it’s only twenty-five past anyway. So if you have some questions, please. Maybe one thing I didn’t mention, just very briefly.
In the highest yoga tantra, we talk about the—I don’t, sorry. There are the yidams, the tantric deities called the yidams. So the yidams are particularly the tantric deities that suit one’s personality, one’s disposition, to achieve enlightenment. That—yidam means something like mind-bonded, that if you bond your mind with this visualization, it’s the best way, the quickest way to achieve enlightenment. So there are the main deities of Yamāntaka, Heruka, Guhyasamāja, and Hevajra.
These are the four main deities of high—and Kālacakra. It’s kind of a special one. These are the main ones. Particularly in the Gelugpa tradition, what Lama Tsongkhapa emphasized—tradition is the emphasis that in order to achieve enlightenment, one needs to practice the three main deities of Yamāntaka, Guhyasamāja, Heruka, because Yamāntaka is the wrathful emanation, embodiment of Mañjuśrī, and one does the practice of Yamāntaka specifically. It should be the first thing to do, traditionally in the good old days.
In the Gelug tradition, this was the first initiation you received of highest yoga tantra, was Yamāntaka, because you did that to get rid of the main obstacles to the practice, because Yamāntaka gets rid of these obstacles. It also helps develop wisdom, because Yamāntaka is Mañjuśrī, is wisdom. But then you practice Heruka for developing, particularly bliss, and you practice Guhyasamāja to develop the illusory body. And if you develop the illusory body in this life, you will definitely achieve enlightenment in this life. Once you’ve achieved the illusory body, you have to get enlightened in that life.
Because once you achieve the illusory body, there is no way you can enter into the bardo state and take another rebirth. Once you’ve achieved the illusory body, you achieve the rupakaya and become Buddha in that lifetime. But anyway, these are the things you can read about. This Daniel Cozort’s book, Daniel Cozort’s book, right, called Highest Yoga Tantra. That’s quite good.
Short book, simple book, giving just the basic steps of the practice. Of course, Lama Yeshe’s book Introduction to Tantra is fantastic. These are two books that are really worthwhile reading about tantric practice. Very reliable. Everything.
Well, you know, the Tibetans make this joke that in the past, the Indians practiced one deity and achieved everything. The Tibetans practiced all the deities and achieved nothing. So I’ve never quite understood this because they often do emphasize how you’re supposed to have one yidam, but then Lama Tsongkhapa emphasizes that you need all these three together somehow. So I don’t know how this exactly fits together, to be honest. I never remember this thing to ask the Lamas when this question always escapes my mind when I have got the opportunity.
Right. Right. Who said that? Lama Tsongkhapa was secretly pointed out by Je Rinpoche? Yeah. Yeah, but there always is even within that system of doing those practices of these three main deities, even in the Gelugpa system, still there is the one deity that you concentrate on, for sure. That can be one of those three or it can be another deity altogether.
Retreats that our Lamas tell us to do. I remember years ago there was one monk—he’s not a monk anymore—but he did a Yamāntaka three-year retreat. His guru was Ling Rinpoche and afterwards said, you know, so how much lam rim did you do? And the monk said, none. And, I mean, the guru said, oh, no.
This is ridiculous. You’ve completely blown it. You know? But you have to meditate on the lam rim during the retreat. The two things go together.
As motivation, partly as motivation at the beginning, to meditate on the lam rim as motivation. And also particularly what the Lamas often say, at least I know the Lamas of our lineage point out that when you do the dharmakaya meditation, which is a meditation on emptiness, it’s the death process where you get to the point of realizing emptiness. So since we don’t realize emptiness spontaneously like that, then at that point one should do something like the four-point analysis from the lam rim teachings on emptiness. So you can incorporate those kind of things as well, but particularly at the beginning of the session to do some lam rim as motivation. Yeah, also.
Yeah, between sessions as well. Also, there’s the part when you do the recitation of the mantra, at that time you can also include some—while you’re reciting the mantra, you can meditate on the lam rim. It’s more difficult, but you can do some lam rim meditation there at that point, particularly relating to bodhicitta, because at that point one’s thinking of purifying all sentient beings. Cautiously, I think. I mean, what I was trying to say is one should feel, I think, it’s important to feel some personal connection with the teacher, not just because they come along to a Dharma center or some place and they’re famous and they’re giving this initiation.
One should have, I think, some personal connection with them first. You’ve built up some relationship with that person, and you want to receive that initiation from that person because you know the qualities of that person. I don’t think that’s necessary. I mean, it’s probably nice to do that. In the past, I think that was more frequently done, and it depends on the individual teachers, but I don’t think that that is done so much now.
The fact that like, if you attend an initiation, then automatically the guru is accepting you as a student, automatically. Before these sessions, you will not go to that teacher—it’s not—I mean, maybe ideally, ideally, yes, but it doesn’t seem to happen so much, and the teachers don’t seem to expect that at this stage. Versions. Yes. Cittamani Tārā is highest yoga tantra version of Tārā.
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yes. I think so.
Yes. But you can read about it in some books. Yeah. But I don’t want to talk about it. I think it’s getting into the area where you’re not supposed to talk about things.