Deity Practice

Deity Practice

Date Posted:
November 2009

Rinpoche gave the following advice to a longtime student, regarding their daily practice.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching in Singapore, 2010. Photo by Thubten Kunsang (Henri Lopez).

Yi means mind, dam means seal – two things not to be separated. Something sealed means not to be separated. Yi is your mind. With what is it sealed? With the deity that you’re going to become one with in the future. Your body, speech, and mind will become one with the deity’s holy body, holy speech, and holy mind, and then you will achieve enlightenment. So, the quick way to achieve that is through tantra.

In everyday life you visualize yourself as the deity, not just only the deity but the guru. One has the understanding that the deity and guru are oneness, one thing. When you visualize yourself as the deity it means the guru. This way, not only when you practice the sadhana, but when you get dressed or when you eat, drink, or sleep, during all these activities, sense enjoyments, etc., think of yourself as the guru-deity. It is good to have the awareness of the deity, but the main thing is the guru. When one experiences sense enjoyments or other things, all of this becomes an offering to the guru and one collects the most extensive merit. If you just think of yourself as the deity then it becomes merit, but not the most merit. The main awareness is of the guru. Your form is the deity but the awareness is of the guru.

In your daily life, you visualize yourself as one with that, especially in tantra. This is what you are going to become in the future. You have to visualize that now, that it actually happened, that you are the result-time deity. This is the whole entire sadhana, from beginning to end, it all is like this. You do everything as if you are the result-time deity, as if you are already the enlightened deity.

The path of the three kayas is the main one that removes the defilements, the dualistic view, and the concept. It purifies ordinary death, ordinary birth, and the ordinary intermediate state. When the obscurations are purified at this time, then through the clear light you achieve the pure illusory body. That becomes the antidote to the subtle defilements, then you achieve enlightenment. You achieve the unification of those two, clear light and illusory body, so that unification becomes a cause of unification of no more learning – that’s the Vajradhara state, the holy body and mind. That’s enlightenment with the seven qualities, seven branches, translated as seven kisses. The Vajradhara father and mother take that form, embracing, with seven qualities, always abiding in great bliss, without the slightest effort manifesting numberless forms according to the needs and karma of sentient beings, until every sentient being, every hell being, animal, human being, sura, asura, and intermediate state being, is brought to enlightenment. That’s one important quality of Buddha, whereas arhats and bodhisattvas have skies of qualities.

In day-to-day life, if you visualize being oneness, even when you’re eating or sleeping, that becomes the highest, quick path to achieving enlightenment. When you do that it collects unbelievable and extensive merits in such a short time. By visualizing the four complete purities that you achieve in the future happening now – a completely purified body of the deity, the completely purified place of the mandala, the completely purified enlightened action, then beams emit, and with each beam, even in one second, an unimaginable number of sentient beings are liberated from suffering and its causes.

In the sadhana, where you’re being the syllable, send out beams to purify sentient beings and they become enlightened. Also make offerings to all the buddhas and bodhisattvas. After that, they all absorb into you and you become the deity. As the deity, you send out beams, purifying. That is the holy action. Think that when you are enlightened, what you’re doing at that time is the holy action you are doing now.

Having completed the merits you receive the purest enjoyments, like the sky. When you are visualizing this now, that collects inconceivable merits and incredible purification. That’s how it becomes the quick path to enlightenment. You are able to achieve enlightenment in one life, whereas in the sutra path you have to collect merits for three great eons in order to achieve enlightenment. It makes it so quick to achieve enlightenment in one life, even in degenerate times, especially through Highest Yoga Tantra, based on this practice, with the four purified results and the purified result-time. It’s as if that has happened now. That’s the same for all tantra.

Highest Yoga Tantra is the quickest method. In one brief lifetime you can achieve enlightenment. This is the greatest skill in the world. The transcendental wisdom of non-dual bliss voidness, the extremely subtle mind, is like an atomic bomb – the quickest way to purify the mind; it is unbelievable powerful.

Collecting merits takes 300 eons in the sutra and Prajnaparamita path, even in lower tantra it takes one life. That means you achieve immortality for 1,000 years, then you achieve enlightenment. With tantra it is a within a fewer number of years, you collect extensive merits, purify the defilements, and finish in such a short time. It is the quickest path to enlightenment.

Yi is your mind, dam is seal. Your mind is sealed with the deity’s holy mind. The mind is the main one, then the speech and body are always in the deity. What you visualize every day becomes the path to achieve enlightenment, to actually achieving the deity’s holy body, speech, and mind. So: yi.dam – mind-sealed deity. That has great meaning. Your mind is sealed with the deity’s holy mind. Visualize them as one. The deity’s holy body, holy speech, and holy mind become the quickest path to enlightenment. With that, while you are washing, walking, working, eating, going to the bathroom, experiencing any sense enjoyments, then everything becomes practice and you collect the most extensive merit, and there is very powerful purification in a very short time. Everything becomes the path to enlightenment.

You should do more meditation on whichever is your main deity. If you have more time, you can do brief meditations on the other deities. The most important key to meditating is three things: the dharmakaya, then sambhogakaya, then nirmanakaya. In the sadhana, even if you have no time to meditate, these three things are the heart of the generation stage.

Other practices you should do are as follows. It is good to practice Vajrasattva before going to bed. The important thing is that if you don’t purify that day’s negative karma, it increases and doubles the next day. The second day it becomes four times the amount, and the third day it increases eight times, then 16. If you recite Vajrasattva, it stops increasing and multiplying. This is an unbelievable help. Not only that, it purifies today’s negative karma and past negative karma. So, it has a lot of benefits. Otherwise, even a small negative karma by multiplying for weeks and years becomes the size of a mountain. With Vajrasattva practice, when one dies, the negative karma is very light. Otherwise, each negative karma made in one’s life is so heavy, and also in the next life, leading to the lower realms.

Also, in the morning, practice the Thirty-Five Buddhas. When you first wake up, think of the motivation of bodhicitta for your whole life. Feel happy that you didn’t die. Then think of the nature of life, bodhicitta. Then you can do the practice for blessing your speech, blessing your mala and so forth. Then, recite the Thirty-Five Buddhas’ names with prostrations. Do whatever number you want to do. Recite the last part, the prayer, just one time, then make the general confession, sit down and do six-session guru yoga. It’s good to include a lam-rim prayer as well. That’s extremely good. Practice the Foundation of All Good Qualities within that. That’s very important, because Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga has nine benefits and is very special. Also, you will have less harm from spirits. It also makes whatever you do – listening, prayer, meditation, Dharma practice – effective. The special advantage is that you develop wisdom, and the even more special advantage is that it enables you to meet Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings in future lives. That is most important and rare. At the time of death you will go to Tushita Pure Land.

So, definitely recite the Foundation of All Good Qualities. Each time you recite it, you get closer to lam-rim realizations and enlightenment. That’s great. You can do the Three Purifications in the evening, because it has Vajrasattva included in it.

If you’re doing further lam-rim practice, you can do this either with the Foundation of All Good Qualities, or when you finish, before the guru absorbs into you, then you can do a more elaborate lam-rim meditation. For example, in one morning you can cover the perfect human rebirth, and divide the lam-rim into three parts: the graduated path of the higher, middle, and lower capable being. Start with the lower capable being. You can do both at that time or later; it doesn’t matter. You can do them first thing in the morning or at some other time during the same day, at your convenience. That’s very good.

Also, please recite the Heart Sutra and/or the Samantabhadra prayer. At the end of the day, dedicate all the merits using the King of Prayers. There are eight prayers you can use; you can do a different prayer each night.

Between sessions, you can practice the lam-rim, with whatever you are doing, practice bodhicitta and the seven point mind transformation, as I have explained. You can practice these while walking. This makes your exercise useful.