Request

Kneel down to recite the Request—you are the chant leader and are making the request not only for yourself but for all sentient beings. Aware of how all sentient beings are suffering, make the request.

Offering the Tormas

If there’s room, the tormas are usually put in front of the mandala. According to the Tibetan tradition there are three beautifully decorated tormas with specific shapes. The central white torma is for Chenrezig, the white one to the right as you face the altar is the landlord torma and the torma to the left—a red, triangle-shaped torma that is flat in the front and round at the back—is for the dakinis and Dharma protectors.¹⁰⁴

Tormas are normally made of tsampa mixed with water and have beautiful decorations. They are round at the base but about half way up start to become more pointed and are a little like the tip of a rocket at the top. The two white tormas have two petals above and one petal down below. The decorations are usually made from butter. However, no matter what material is used, the decorations should be as beautiful as possible. The whole point of decorating the tormas is to accumulate merit. The purpose of making them in nice shapes is to create the karma to receive beautiful, perfect human bodies in future lives.

The basic point is to offer the merit field something that you would enjoy most. I think that’s the best thing. If you’re going to make the tormas yourself, it’s good to make them as rich as possible, with sugar, butter and milk, like a rich cake. It’s good to offer something that you would enjoy eating.

However, if you don’t make the tormas, you can offer three cakes or three bottles of honey, peanut butter or something else that you regard as delicious. Later, instead of throwing the tormas away, you can eat them as a blessing or give them to others.

It’s good to know the traditional way of arranging the altar and doing the nyung nä practice. Once you have seen how things are done you can later do the practice alone or, when you are guiding other people, explain how to do the things that people need to understand.

In Highest Yoga Tantra practice you can eat meat and onions and drink alcohol and make offerings of meat and alcohol. A little alcohol and meat are also mixed into Highest Yoga Tantra tormas because they have power to hook realizations. Depending on a person’s mind, that external condition of offering such a torma together with meditation can have the power to develop realizations.

However, since Action Tantra is a different level of practice, there is no mention of mixing meat and alcohol into the torma. You use just white food, the best you can find. In Action Tantra there’s no mention of illusory body and clear light as paths to achieve rupakaya and dharmakaya. Since the illusory body and clear light are mentioned in Highest Yoga Tantra, there is the offering of meat and alcohol and small amounts are taken, along with meditation, to signify the illusory body and clear light, the method and wisdom of the second [completion] stage of Highest Yoga Tantra, and the means to achieve rupakaya and dharmakaya. Since the illusory body and clear light are not revealed in Action Tantra, meat and alcohol are not used. It’s not that there would be some harm to Chenrezig if you offered meat and alcohol; it’s just that such paths are not mentioned at this level of practice. In Highest Yoga Tantra, when you have achieved second stage realizations, meat and alcohol become a quick way to complete the practice, to develop the illusory body and clear light. You are then able to quickly cut off dual view, and that’s how you can quickly achieve enlightenment.

Blessing the Tormas

First, bless the tormas. When you do, bless all three together, then offer them individually. The first torma is offered to Chenrezig and the five types of buddhas. The second torma offering is to the protectors: Six-Arm Mahakala, Four-Arm Mahakala and other protectors. You then offer the third torma to the local landlords, the worldly protectors.

As you recite OM PADMATAKRIT HUM PHAT and sprinkle the water, think that the drops of water are transformed into innumerable Hayagriva deities, who chase away all the interferers abiding in the tormas. (Whenever you sprinkle vase water, you are dispelling interferers.)

With the mantra of emptiness, OM SVABHAVA SHUDDHA SARVA DHARMA SVABHAVA SHUDDHO HAM, which has a very deep meaning,¹⁰⁵ then purify the tormas in emptiness: the ordinary appearance of truly existent tormas is purified in emptiness. While it is empty, the syllable BHRUM appears. The BHRUM then transforms into a large and extensive jewel container. Inside it is a white syllable OM, of the nature of light, which becomes a great ocean of uncontaminated transcendental wisdom nectar, which is the torma. (Uncontaminated means undefiled.)

Think of a very large ocean of nectar, then bless it by reciting OM AH HUM three times.

Offering the Torma to the Great Compassionate One and his Retinue

Then offer the central torma to Chenrezig and the five types of buddhas.

Praises to the Dharma Protectors

Next recite the praises to Six-Arm Mahakala and Four-Arm Mahakala and the prayer to Pälden Lhamo that requests the four actions, Praise to Pälden Lhamo: Requesting the Four Activities. Mahakala, Pälden Lhamo and Kalarupa are protectors particularly related to Tibetans. Besides Mahakala and Pälden Lhamo, protectors particularly connected to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, there are other protectors connected to the whole Tibetan government.

Protectors help you to succeed in your practice, in your extensive works for sentient beings and for the teaching of Buddha. Each time you do the protector prayers, especially these days, make strong requests to Mahakala and all the other protectors, and think that they immediately accept to grant your requests.

Six-Arm Mahakala is a protector who, on the order of Chenrezig, is living in the pledge to protect whoever practices bodhicitta. Mahakala looks after any Dharma practitioner who practices bodhicitta, especially thought training, and Chenrezig yoga. Six-Arm Mahakala is actually a wrathful manifestation of Chenrezig. In essence, Mahakala is the great compassion of the holy mind of Chenrezig, but manifests in wrathful aspect to subdue the minds of us sentient beings.

In previous times, Panchen Losang Chökyi Gyältsän, the lama who compiled Lama Chöpa, did a Mahakala retreat in order to prevent hindrances to actualizing the lam-rim. He planned to do the retreat for a month or so, but after five days he had generated the loving compassionate thought of bodhicitta in his mind, so he stopped his retreat. Initially he planned to do the retreat just to prevent hindrances, not to actualize the path. He didn’t expect that. So practicing Mahakala can make a big difference to your practice of bodhicitta and Mahayana thought training. Your bodhicitta practice becomes successful because Mahakala especially protects practitioners of Chenrezig yoga.

Torma Offering to the Dharma Protectors and the Dakas and Dakinis

Think in particular that you’re offering the torma to all the protectors whose initiation you have received. Visualize them all there in front of you. When you make the torma offering to Six-Arm Mahakala and the other protectors, think that they instantly appear in front of you and are very pleased by your torma offering.

The final prayer was written by the Seventh Dalai Lama to encourage all those different protectors to look after the teachings and Dharma practitioners and to make one’s own Dharma practice successful.

Torma Offering to the Local Deities

Next comes the torma offering to the local landlords, who are spirits situated in certain areas in each country. Landlords, ordinary worldly gods who are not beyond samsara, have much power to harm and also to help. Besides giving the torma to the landlord of the particular area where you are, you are giving it to all the many landlords who abide in this world, including the spirit of Tarko, whose story is mentioned in the nyung nä text.

Since landlords can harm or help, we give them a torma and ask them to help and not interfere, as expressed in the request—to help protect the teachings, make Dharma practice successful and make the lives of the holy beings long.

Offering an Ablution

Next we offer a bath to the merit field, which is one of the five completion practices.¹⁰⁶ Doing this practice is a substitute for the guru yoga practice of actually offering the guru a bath and is done to purify your negativities and accumulate merit. If you are living with your guru, the main practice of offering a bath is to actually perform the service of washing your guru’s holy body, offering ornaments and so forth. Visualizing offering a bath is a substitute for that, and even visualizing offering a bath collects a lot of merit and brings great purification.

Correctly following the virtuous friend has two divisions: following with thought and following with action. Following with action then has three further divisions, one of which is offering service to the guru. As part of guru yoga practice, you visualize a bathing house and then visualize offering service by offering a bath to the beings of the merit field. The practice is done for the disciple’s own profit, to accumulate merit and to purify obscurations.

The practice of offering a bath to the merit field also purifies mental pollution, which causes dullness in your mind, so that you sleep a lot and can’t meditate.

Remember the story of the arhat Small Path (Lamchungpa; Skt: Chudapanthaka),¹⁰⁷ who couldn’t memorize even the two syllables si and dam at the same time. When he learned si, he forgot dam; when he learned dam, he forgot si. Buddha then gave him the job of cleaning the monks’ shoes outside the temple and asked the monks to say, “Avoid dust, avoid stains,” after he had cleaned their shoes. (This could refer to renouncing true suffering and the true cause of suffering; it could also refer to the two obscurations.) Because the monks continuously recited “Avoid dust, avoid stains” in the ear of this young child as they passed back and forth through the door, he then became able to memorize.

Small Path was then given the job of cleaning the grounds outside the temple. He then realized the meaning of “Avoid dust, avoid stains” and actualized true path, the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness. He became an arhat in that life. When he was a child he was so ignorant that he couldn’t memorize even two syllables, but because of Buddha’s perfect power to guide sentient beings he knew exactly how to skillfully guide Small Path so that he was able to become an arhat in that life. His realizing the path started by cleaning the monks’ shoes. Buddha told him to clean the dust from the monks’ shoes because the Sangha are powerful objects, so serving them by cleaning their shoes accumulated much merit and purified much negative karma.

The practice of offering a bath affects the mind in a similar way.

When offering a bath, gather a reflection of the merit field in a mirror and physically offer the bath to that reflection. Before you invoke the merit field, use a peacock feather, a pointed piece of metal or a small branch to take water from the action vase and draw four lines (a grid with two sets of two lines) on the mirror to represent the four beams of the bathing house. Then mark the squares with five drops of water to signify the five types of buddhas.¹⁰⁸

Next capture the reflection of the merit field in the mirror. Also pour some water into a basin to represent the bathing pool. Then place the mirror in the basin and do the visualization of offering a bath. Even though you offer a bath to the reflection of the merit field, you can still visualize that the actual living beings are there.

At the beginning, visualize the bathing house as beautiful as possible, as described in the prayer:

The bath house has an extremely sweet fragrance,
A crystal floor, and beautiful sparkling jeweled pillars.
The roof is covered by a canopy
Decorated with shining pearls.

The bathing house is an extremely beautiful celestial mansion, with four doors and four golden steps that come down into the pool, similar to those of a hotel swimming pool. It’s like a swimming pool inside a house. The bathing house is fragrantly scented. It has a radiant crystal base and you can see many different jewels on the bottom of the pool. There are beautifully decorated, radiant jewel pillars. There’s also a canopy of pearl decorations between the ceiling and the walls.

Outside the bathing house, all the robes of the monks and the divine garments of the deities in the merit field are hung on the branches of trees or placed on platforms or tables. Then, like people entering a swimming pool, all the beings enter the bathing pool.¹⁰⁹

Then from your heart transform goddesses carrying vases. Transform three goddesses for each holy being in the merit field, each with her own job. One offering goddess takes water from the pool and offers a bath to the holy body, another dries off the water and the third offers robes or divine dress and ornaments.

The sequence of offering a bath follows the verses of the prayer. You offer a bath first to Chenrezig, Compassion Buddha; second to the gurus and deities; third to the buddhas and bodhisattvas; fourth to the Hearers and Self-Conquerors; fifth to the dakas and dakinis; and sixth to the Dharma protectors. Also offer music as you offer the bath.

After that, you can offer a bath to the local protectors of the Himalayan regions, the five long-life dakinis and the twelve tenma.¹¹⁰ Especially, you should offer a bath to purify all the local nagas and landlords. The bath offering becomes healing for them, healing their sicknesses and resolving whatever other problems they have. Think that all the pollutions and other undesirable things they have received from people have been purified. They enjoy the bath very much and are satisfied.

Of course, the holy beings in the merit field have nothing to clean, nothing to purify; the bath offering is mainly a method to purify us, to clean away the two obscurations. By offering them a bath we purify ourselves.

Drying the Holy Bodies

There are different ways of drying off the water with OM HUM TRAM HRIH AH. You can think that all the water is drawn to five different points¹¹¹ on the holy bodies of the merit field, which the goddesses dry with OM, HUM, TRAM, HRIH and AH.

Offering Divine Garments

Offer divine garments and ornaments or robes in accordance with what is appropriate, such as robes to the ordained lineage lamas. Offer Dromtönpa, a lay lineage lama, a blue animal-skin chuba.

When you offer garments, don’t use just any old piece of cloth. Use a clean, beautiful scarf. In that way you create more merit. As you recite the verse, hold up the scarf and offer that as the divine dress.

Offering Ornaments

When you offer ornaments, if you have a nice jewel mala, hold it there in the folded scarf. You collect more merit if you offer that to the merit field.

Everything that you offer generates great bliss in the holy minds of the merit field. That’s the main point.

Offering a Vase

When you finish offering the vase, pour a drop of water on the ground, thinking that it purifies the sentient beings of the six realms and that they generate bodhicitta in their minds.

Offering a Crown

At the end, before the merit field returns to its natural abode, it’s very good to do the offering of a crown to Buddha and then dedicate for the teachings to last a long time and for all sentient beings to achieve the ten powers of a buddha, or enlightenment. It’s very important to do that at the end.

The two verses for offering a crown are:

With most excellent light radiating forth to the ten directions,
Splendor of good fortune ablaze everywhere,
This crown ornament of precious gold dust,
I offer to the crown of the Shakya King.
Thereby, may the precious teachings spread to the ten directions

And may the world be pervaded by supreme happiness!
By [the teachings] becoming the crown ornament of transmigrators, including gods,
May all attain the level of one endowed with the ten powers.

Request

Then hold the mirror up and the merit field returns to its natural abode. At that time, recite the request:

Out of your loving compassion for myself and migrating beings,
O bhagavan, please remain
Through the force of your miraculous manifestations
For as long as we continue to make offerings.

Then pour the water in the basin back into the action vase. When you do this, hold the stick so that the water drips down it into the vase. This is much easier than trying to pour directly from the container; it might then spill out.

Visualize that the water goes into channels that go to the six realms, purifying the negative karma and defilements of all the sentient beings in each realm. All the old robes and divine garments of the merit field left hanging in the trees are given as relics, as objects of devotion, to the beings in the six realms.

Because the water has been used to offer a bath to the merit field, it’s very blessed, so, as Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo advised, you can take one drop for purification and for the blessing.

The bathing house then becomes empty right there.

Dedication

Due to the merits accumulated by me,
May I quickly achieve enlightenment in this world.
May I reveal the Dharma in order to benefit the transmigratory beings
And to quickly liberate the sentient beings who are intoxicated  by suffering.

In all my lifetimes, may I and all sentient beings
Be born with good caste, clear wisdom, great compassion
And great devotion to our gurus and without pride.
And may we abide in the samaya of Chenrezig.

In all lifetimes, to benefit other sentient beings,
May I and all other sentient beings
Become only like you, Guru Chenrezig,
And like your retinue, your life span, your pure realm and your holy name.

Due to having praised and made requests to you,
May I and all other sentient beings have no disease, spirit harms, poverty and quarrels;
And may the Dharma and auspicious things increase in the place where we are.

May the precious mind of bodhicitta
Be born in those in whom it has not been generated;
May that which has been generated not decline,
But increase more and more.

Dedicate in this way for yourself and for all sentient beings.

Purifying Errors with the Hundred-Syllable Mantra of Padmasattva

As I explained earlier, the reason you ring the bell during the Padmasattva mantra is not as an offering but to remind you to meditate on emptiness. The most powerful way to purify any mistake you have made is to meditate on emptiness. Recite the hundred-syllable mantra and also ring the bell, because the bell signifies wisdom, the wisdom realizing emptiness. The sound of the bell is telling you that everything is empty from its own side, that everything does not exist from its own side. While ringing the bell and reciting the Padmasattva mantra, remember that the negative karmas and obscurations accumulated through imperfect concentration and various other mistakes you have made are all empty. Remember the emptiness of all the negative karmas and obscurations.

Concentrate deeply on the emptiness of the three circles: subject, action, object. Looking at your negative karmas and obscurations as empty is extremely powerful. One or two seconds of meditation on emptiness is very powerful, like an atomic bomb. That one or two seconds of concentration purifies inconceivable obscurations.

Inner Ablution: Taking the Vase Nectar

Arya Great Compassionate One with his retinue descends in front of you. White nectar flows from their holy bodies, washing all the outside and inside of your body and purifying all diseases, spirit harms, negative karmas and obscurations accumulated with your three doors—your body, speech and mind—and even all the imprints left by negative karma. Nothing, not even the slightest mental stain, is left on your mental continuum. Generate strong faith in this. How much you are able to purify depends on how much faith you are able to generate. The purification comes from your own mind; it depends on your own mind.

The nectar should be taken in three sips. The first sip purifies all your disturbing-thought obscurations, which interfere with achieving liberation. The second sip purifies all your subtle obscurations, which mainly interfere with achieving omniscience. The third sip causes you to actualize the dharmakaya within you.

On the fasting day, don’t drink the water from the vase but just put a little from your hand on your head three times, with the same meditation.

Arising as the Commitment Being

If you have visualized yourself as Thousand-Arm Chenrezig, all the faces and arms absorb back to the root face and arms, and you become one-face, two-arm Chenrezig.

Dedication

Ge wa di yi nyur du dag
Thug je chhen po drub gyur nä
Dro wa chig kyang ma lü pa
De yi sa la gö par shog

Due to the merits of the three times accumulated by me, by all the buddhas, bodhisattvas and all other beings, may I quickly achieve the Great Compassionate One and lead every sentient being to the Great Compassionate One’s enlightenment.

If you do this dedication with awareness of emptiness it becomes a pure dedication, unstained by the concept of true existence. Meditating intensively on emptiness, looking at everything as empty, dedicate the merits, sealing them with emptiness.

To make this dedication more effective for your mind, you can recite it in one of the following ways:

Due to all the past, present and future merits accumulated by me and by all the buddhas, bodhisattvas and all other beings, which are merely imputed by the mind, may the I, who is merely imputed by the mind, achieve the Great Compassionate One, who is merely imputed by the mind, and lead every sentient being, who is merely imputed by the mind, to the Great Compassionate One’s enlightenment, which is merely imputed by the mind.

Due to all the past, present and future merits accumulated by me and by all the buddhas, bodhisattvas and all other beings, which are empty from their own side, may the I, who is empty from its own side, achieve Chenrezig’s enlightenment, which is empty from its own side, and lead all sentient beings, who are empty from their own side, to that Chenrezig enlightenment, which is empty from its own side.

Due to all the past, present and future merits accumulated by me and by all the buddhas, bodhisattvas and all other beings, which exist but which are empty, may the I, who exists but who is empty, achieve Chenrezig’s enlightenment, which exists but which is empty, and lead all sentient beings, who exist but who are empty, to that Chenrezig enlightenment, which exists but which is empty, by myself alone, who exists but who is empty.

If we dedicate in this way, sealing our dedication with emptiness, the merits not only become inexhaustible, so that no matter how much we use them they never finish, but they cannot be destroyed by anger and heresy.

Requesting to Reside or Depart

A. When the Basis of the Front Generation is a Drawn Mandala, Request the Deities to Reside Continually

If you have a Chenrezig statue or mandala, visualize that the merit field absorbs into the statue or mandala.

You can think that the Chenrezig, five types of buddhas and mandala you have visualized in front of you absorb into all the buddha statues and holy objects in the retreat room, as well as into the picture of the Chenrezig mandala inside the mandala house, thus blessing, or consecrating, them. This becomes the same as consecrating the holy objects.

By abiding with these holy objects for the benefit of sentient beings, please grant health, long life, wealth, control and all the sublime realizations.

OM SUPRATISHTHA VAJRA YE SVAHA

Request the deities to abide with the statues and other holy objects to benefit sentient beings. In the prayer, control means control over wind and mind. If you have control over your body and mind, they then become serviceable, so that you can use them in the path to enlightenment, the common path of sutra and the particular path of tantra. You also ask for your mind to be enriched with all scriptural understanding and realizations.

C. When the Basis of the Front Generation is Heaps of Substances, Request the Deities to Depart

If you don’t have a Chenrezig mandala but just a heap of grains, say the following prayer:

OM You have done the works for sentient beings
And granted the realizations.
Although you are going back to the land of buddhas,
I request you to please come back again.

OM VAJRA MUH

The transcendental wisdom beings return to the natural abode. The samaya beings then absorb into you.

Now you are one-face, two-arm Chenrezig, marked with the three syllables OM, AH and HUM at your three places. Then do the virtuous practices of the break-time.

Verses of Auspiciousness

The dedication prayer written by E Khachö Tändar, Prayer of Abiding in the Retreat, describes the practice of nyung nä and its benefits. It is followed by the auspicious prayer written by Panchen Losang Chökyi Gyältsän.

Prayer of Abiding in the Retreat

In the fourth verse, . . . the charming voice of Brahma means a buddha’s holy speech. There’s a reason it’s expressed in this way, but it means a buddha’s holy speech.

If you’re finding the nyung nä practice very hard, don’t think, “I shouldn’t have done this nyung nä.” When you face difficulties, don’t reject nyung nä practice because it will create the karma for you to be unable to do nyung näs in the future. It will become an obstacle so that you won’t get the opportunity to do nyung näs for many future lives.

If you’re experiencing difficulties and such thoughts come, remember the three lower realms. Remember especially the hell and preta sufferings and think, “Compared to their suffering, what I’m experiencing is great pleasure. This is great pleasure compared to even the lightest hell suffering.” It’s very good to read the sections on hell and preta sufferings in lam-rim texts, especially when there’s a danger that you will break the precepts because of hunger, thirst and so forth. Remember that if you follow the three poisonous minds you will fall down into the lower realms and experience those sufferings that you don’t even want to hear about now.

Expression of Auspiciousness of Abiding in the Retreat

In this prayer, Panchen Losang Chökyi Gyältsän requests Chenrezig for all the auspicious things that happened to Bhikshuni Lakshmi and the many Indian and Tibetan yogis, the direct and indirect lineage gurus, who achieved Chenrezig, to happen to us. He also requests for help in ceasing all our inauspicious things and in increasing happiness and realizations and in completing the realizations.

Think that this prayer is related to you, that Panchen Losang Chökyi Gyältsän is praying for you.

Dedications

Our being able to accumulate so much merit doing nyung näs is all basically due to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the present holder and preserver of the whole Buddhadharma, His Holiness Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche, who gave much inspiration to do nyung näs by giving the oral transmissions and a whole commentary on nyung nä, Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche and Lama Yeshe.

The tradition of doing nyung näs was established in past times in Lawudo, where we did the first nyung nä. When I returned to the Lawudo Cave, the same people who used to be benefactors of the Lawudo Lama asked me to start doing nyung näs. However, it’s basically due to the kindness of Lama Yeshe, who was incomparably kinder than all the buddhas of the three times, that we have been able to accumulate so much merit by doing nyung nä practice.

You can dedicate the merits in the following ways:

Due to all these merits, may the wishes of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and all the other holy beings be accomplished and may they have stable lives until samsara ends.

In particular, may Tenzin Ösel Hita have a stable life until samsara ends and be able to benefit all sentient beings like Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, Lama Tsongkhapa and Lama Yeshe, by becoming a holder of the entire teaching.

May all the students of all the FPMT centers be able to actualize the complete path of Lama Tsongkhapa in this life and be able to spread it to all sentient beings. In this way, may all the rest of the sentient beings quickly achieve enlightenment.

May all sentient beings receive and experience all the merit and happiness that I have accumulated. Whatever suffering sentient beings have, may I receive and experience it.

Due to all these merits, just by any sentient being hearing me, touching me, talking about me, remembering me or thinking of me, may all their sufferings be pacified and may they achieve all happiness.

Lama Tsongkhapa dedication prayers

Mä jung nam thar tsang mäi thrim dang dän
Lab chhen gyäl sä chö päi nying tob chhe
De tong chhog gi rim nyi näl jor gyi
Lo zang gyäl wäi tän dag jäl war shog

May I and all sentient beings be able to meet the pure wisdom teaching of the Victorious One, which is living in pure morality, having the brave attitude to do the extensive bodhisattva deeds and actualizing the yoga of the two stages, the essence of which is the transcendental wisdom of nondual bliss and voidness.

May I and all sentient beings be able to meet this pure complete teaching of Lama Tsongkhapa, the unification of sutra and tantra, right this second.

In relation to the teaching of Lama Tsongkhapa, this verse mentions the yoga of the two stages, the sublime realization of bliss-voidness. Why is bliss-voidness mentioned separately, in addition to mention of the two stages? Even though the two stages contain all the realizations of tantra, if we have realization of bliss-voidness it means that there’s enlightenment in this life. If we don’t have this realization, there’s no enlightenment in this life. I think that this is why this essence of the Highest Yoga Tantra path is mentioned.

If you are living in pure moral conduct and have strong bodhicitta, renouncing the self and cherishing others, you have met Lama Tsongkhapa’s teaching. And if you have the realization of bliss-voidness, you have met Lama Tsongkhapa’s tantric teaching.

We pray to meet Lama Tsongkhapa’s teaching: Lo zang gyäl wäi tän dag jäl war shog, “May I be able to meet the pure wisdom teaching of the Victorious One,” which means Lama Tsongkhapa. It is extremely important to pray to meet Lama Tsongkhapa’s teaching in this life, where meet means to have all these pure realizations in this life.

We can also pray to be born wherever Lama Tsongkhapa is, in whichever pure realm:

Guru Losang Dragpa, wherever you are, whether in Tushita, Sukhavati or another pure realm, may I, all the people around me and all sentient beings be born in this pure realm.

With this verse, you can think of your parents, relatives, friends and enemies, those who are close to you and with whom you have a good connection and those with whom you have a bad connection.

Author’s Colophon

This text was composed by the Seventh Dalai Lama, Kelzang Gyatso, in his room at the Potala Palace of the Arya Compassionate One.

The Seventh Dalai Lama says that Nagarjuna composed a nyung nä practice, as did Bhikshuni Lakshmi, and that writings by other learned, highly attained beings of the nyung nä were also relied upon. While this sadhana composed by Kelzang Gyatso, the Seventh Dalai Lama, is based on those Indian scriptures, it is mainly based on the more common method of achievement composed by Gyalwa Gendun Gyatso, the second Dalai Lama.

Author’s Dedication

You can also dedicate the merits with the three verses of dedication composed by Gyalwa Kelzang Gyatso, which come at the very end of the nyung nä sadhana.

Due to all the past, present and future merits collected by me and the merits of the three times collected by
all other sentient beings, including the bodhisattvas, and by the buddhas:
With even a portion of the stream of the four rivers
Of the three miracles that come from
The Kailash Mountain of pristine white compassion,
Arya Avalokiteshvara cleanses the stains of all living beings.
Due to the virtue of arranging a ceremony of divine approximation of that protector,
According to the custom of the pure lineage of the (Bhikshuni) Lakshmi tradition,
May previously accumulated negativities, obscurations and imprints be purified,
And may there be dominion over the state of the inseparable three kayas.
May all sentient beings, who have been my mother and father,
And who brought me benefit as to a dear child during countless rebirths,
Always be befriended by Avalokiteshvara
And swiftly contact the abode of supreme bliss.

---

NOTES

¹⁰⁴ See appendix 1 in Nyung Nä. [Return to text]

¹⁰⁵ See appendix 1 in Universal Love. [Return to text]

¹⁰⁶ The five completion practices are dedication, requesting forgiveness, performing the two ablutions, requesting the deities to reside or depart and gathering the mandala. [Return to text]

¹⁰⁷ See Liberation, pp. 106–12. [Return to text]

¹⁰⁸ See appendix 7 in Nyung Nä. [Return to text]

¹⁰⁹ In one commentary, Rinpoche says “the holy beings are above the water on thrones." [Return to text]

¹¹⁰ Guardian goddesses who protect Tibet. [Return to text]

¹¹¹ In Liberation, p. 168, Pabongka Rinpoche lists them as forehead, throat, heart and two shoulders. [Return to text]