Highest Yoga Tantra Practice

Highest Yoga Tantra Practice

Date of Advice:
February 2015
Date Posted:
August 2015

A student asked Rinpoche for advice about her personal deity for tantric practice [Tib: yi-dam].  

My very dear, most precious, most dear, most kind, wish-fulfilling one,
I am so happy to hear that you are enjoying Buddhism more and more. That means that you are a lucky person, so, so, so fortunate. Thank you very much.

In order to make your life most meaningful and beneficial not only for yourself, but for sentient beings, to free them from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to the state of buddhahood—the total cessation of all the obscurations of the mind and completion of all realizations—you need to achieve that state of sang-gye, (the total elimination of all the obscurations and completion of all the qualities.)

In order to quickly achieve that, you need to practice Highest Yoga Tantra. You can achieve enlightenment in one lifetime by practicing the lowest tantra, but to do so you need to practice long life techniques to live for 100,000 years. In Highest Yoga Tantra there is the most skillful method, the extremely subtle wisdom realizing emptiness that is so powerful, the clear light. If you can experience this clear light then you are able to achieve enlightenment in a brief lifetime of degenerate times.

I suggest, from my observation of your karma, that you practice Vajrayogini as your deity. To practice Vajrayogini you need to receive the initiation, and to receive that initiation you need to first receive either Guhyasamaja, Kalachakra or Heruka initiation. The most appropriate initiation is the Heruka initiation. I am supposed to be giving Heruka initiation in Mexico this year, but I can’t say if it will happen or not.

With much love and prayer. Good luck!