PRELIMINARY TEACHINGS TO A VAJRASATTVA JENANG

[Rinpoche and students recite Prayers before Teachings]

So, the importance of practicing Vajrasattva.

[Referring to the audio in the gompa being very loud] I think the whole world can hear the sound! All sentient beings, even the ants and slugs, can hear! In Dharamsala, it’s very foggy and there are lots of slugs on the road outside Tushita Dharamsala. Even they can hear my mumbling.

Vajrasattva is a very common practice, well-known in all four traditions: the Nyingma, Kagyü, Sakya and Gelug. The Buddha manifested into Vajrasattva and taught it. For all of you who have taken a highest tantra initiations, it is part of the practice to recite the hundred-syllable mantra at least twenty-one times. If you recite the Vajrasattva mantra twenty-one times, whatever negative karma you have collected with your body, speech and mind today will be purified. And not only that, the past negative karmas will be purified, not only from this life but also from all lives before this life. By reciting the mantra twenty-one times, today’s negative karma does not multiply the next day; it does not become double.

Kyabje Chöden Rinpoche explained that negative karma [not purified] increases by double tomorrow. I don’t remember exactly but Rinpoche said something like how the number increases the next day, it becomes double. That is common but I think the way Rinpoche counts is that it becomes double the next day and then triple on the third day. All the negative karmas collected with body, speech and mind today become triple.

It is very important to understand this. Whether you have taken the initiation or not, unless you recite Vajrasattva, unless you do the Vajrasattva practice at the end of the day, if you fail to purify it, one small negative karma collected today increases day by day. You must understand deeply that even if the negative karma is very small, it increases day by day and by the time you die it becomes like a mountain. I’m talking about one small negative karma, one light negative karma. By increasing day by day, it becomes like a mountain, like atoms increasing and becoming a mountain when you die. So, every day, every hour, every minute, every second you collect negative karma with your body, speech and mind, and when you don’t do Vajrasattva, it increases day by day and each one becomes like a mountain. You have to know that in your heart. That is very important.

I think it was Sakya Pandita who said,

To the wise man, even a great negativity becomes small; to the fool, even a small negativity becomes huge.³²

For the foolish one who does not know Vajrasattva practice, even though their negative karma is very small, it increases day by day and by the time they die, it becomes like a mountain. Then, they are forced to wander in the lower realms as a hell being, a hungry ghost or an animal for eons and eons. You see what happens? You cannot even hear a human voice for eons. There’s nothing but incredible suffering, for eons and eons.

You have to know that. You have to know how important it is to practice Vajrasattva, whether you have taken the initiation or not. It’s so important!

Sakya Pandita then said that even though the learned ones have created heavy negative karma, because they know the Vajrasattva practice, they can purify it. Even though when they created it, the negative karma was heavy, they know the Vajrasattva practice and can purify it, so it becomes small. That is very good to know. You have to know how important it is to recite Vajrasattva every day, whether you have taken the initiation or not.

If you cannot memorize the hundred-syllable mantra, you can recite OM VAJRASATTVA HUM, the short one, twenty-eight times. If you recite that, you stop today’s negative karma increasing and becoming double tomorrow. You have to recite OM VAJRASATTVA HUM twenty-eight times to have that power.

The other thing is that some people say they do not want to take the initiation because they cannot keep the bodhisattva and tantric vows. They think it is very heavy to break the vows, therefore they can’t practice like that. Lama Atisha told the story of two Drepung geshes who thought like this. He said it was like the blind yak eating grass. One eye was blind so it could not eat all the grass. [Because it couldn’t see it], there was still a lot of grass left when it thought it had finished.

In the bodhisattva vows, there are eighteen root downfalls and forty-six secondary vices and the tantric vows have fourteen root downfalls as well as the secondary vices, and there are six types of mother tantra samayas with those special tantric secondary vows. If we break them, we accumulate vices, like dust continuously coming. We would become filled with dust. But Lama Atisha explained that doing Vajrasattva even once we are able to completely clear the dust. Just once will heal us. Just one time, even though there is so much dust.

When we break the secondary vices, those difficult ones, we constantly receive vices. When we leave a car outside without a cover, the whole car gets covered with dust. That is why many people use covers. Once the car is covered, the dust is completely gone. Vajrasattva is like the cover for a car. If we know Vajrasattva, if we practice the long mantra even just twenty-one times or the short one twenty-eight times, it is unbelievably easy to clean the mind, to purify the mind. Because our mind has not achieved the realizations of renunciation, bodhicitta, and not even common path of the lamrim, of course we receive the vices, especially those subtle ones. But then, there is this practice of Vajrasattva. With Vajrasattva, all the vices are completely purified.

Of course, if we do the practice very strictly in order to get realizations, we are able to keep the vows more and more purely. Lama Atisha explained that even though he did not break the pratimoksha vows or the bodhisattva vows, not even the forty-six secondary vices, he sometimes broke the tantric vows—not the main ones, the root downfalls, but those hard ones, the secondary vices, the subtle ones. He therefore always carried a small Kadampa stupa with his own guru’s relics inside, and if something happened even on the road while traveling, and he incurred some vices, if he broke some tantric samayas, the secondary subtle ones, he would suddenly put the stupa there and do prostrations and make confession. He used the Kadampa stupa he always carried with him like that. That is something you should know.

That is why the Vajrasattva practice is so important. Especially if you have taken initiations such as highest tantra ones, the Vajrasattva practice is so important. Each time you do it, it cleans away all the vices that you received. I don’t remember the verses, but there is a tantric text that says if you recite the Vajrasattva mantra a hundred thousand times, even the tantric root vows are completely purified.

Generally if you are doing the retreat of the practice of purification, practicing purification every day, there is Vajrasattva, but there are other practices as well, such as prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas. With Lama Tsongkhapa, whereas in his life story you hear he did Vajrasattva so many times, you don’t hear how he did prostrations while reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas, although he did. For a long time I thought he had done 700,000 Vajrasattva prostrations, but his life story explained he did so much more.

At the beginning, because he recited the mantra without de zhin sheg pa, “suchness,” he saw Thirty-five Buddhas but without heads, but afterwards he added de zhin sheg pa, which explained the qualities, that phenomena do not exist from their own side, that existing from there is a hallucination. Because they are totally empty of existing from their own side, the omniscient mind seeing every single existent phenomenon as it is, which is empty, not existing from its own side. Seeing all phenomena, past, present, and future, like that as they are, as empty, that is suchness, de zhin sheg pa. When he added that, he saw the Thirty-five Buddhas with all their heads. Usually if you want to express the Buddha’s name, that is one, but de zhin sheg pa expresses the qualities. Then, rainfalls of realizations happen so easily, all the way up to enlightenment.

When I asked Kyabje Denma Locho Rinpoche about this, writing to him from Australia, Rinpoche said, “Oh, you sent an order! Like the king gives an order to the population!” I think he said that because I voiced myself a bit strongly, he thought I was giving an order. But he answered why. He said when you recite the Thirty-five Buddhas once, you should do it according to the prayer, with the four opponent powers: the power of dependence, the power of regret, the power of resolve and the power of the remedy.

The power of regret is reflecting on the shortcomings of the negative karma [you have done], so that you feel regret for having done it. Reciting the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas is the power of the remedy [in this practice]. And then, the power of resolve is the determination not to commit that action again.

Reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas prayer, even just once—if you do it exactly according to that, with the practice of the four opponent powers—has the power to purify even the very heavy negative karma of having killed your father or mother, or an arhat who is free from samsara, having caused blood to flow from a buddha or having caused disunity among the Sangha. These are the five immediate negativities, the five heavy negative karmas without break, where the karma is so heavy that you go straight to the eighth hot hell, the inexhaustible hot hell, where the suffering is unbearable. If you are born there, the lifespan is one eon.

Even if this world becomes empty, its time finished, and there is no hell of this world, there are numberless other universes so, because your karma is not finished, you get born in another hell realm in another universe until your negative karma is finished. But just by doing the Thirty-five Buddhas prayer well once, it has power to purify the five immediate negativities that cause you to be born in the lowest hot hell and all the other negative karmas get postponed. Rinpoche answered like that.

So, along with the Vajrasattva practice, in the Lama Tsongkhapa tradition, reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas prayer and doing prostrations is very common. Many people do that. Many lamrim lineage lamas, by reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas, do a thousand prostrations every day, or several hundred, or one hundred. That is very common in the Lama Tsongkhapa tradition.

PURIFYING THE RESULTS OF KILLING

I’ll tell you this. For a negative karma to be complete we need four things. For example, with killing, the first things is zhi, meaning the object or base, which is the sentient being we kill. Then there is sampa, the thought to kill; jorwa, the action of killing; and tarthug, the completion, which for killing is the other being—the animal or human being—dying before we do. Zhi, sampa, jorwa, tarthug, these four things. When the negative karma has these four things gathered, the karma is complete.

For that, there is the power of dependence, ten gyi thob. We purify the negative karma collected with sentient beings with the bodhicitta practice. We purify the negative karma collected with the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha by taking refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

Then, by thinking of the shortcomings of the negative karma, we feel regret. People in the West think that anything related to regret is bad, that it is negative. But here it is positive. You have to understand why it is positive. Because it purifies our negative karma. Do you understand? It is different from the Western system. It is positive because it purifies our negative karma; our suffering becomes less. It is like medicine. Our negative karma becomes less; our negative karma gets purified. Do you understand?

Then, the power of the remedy. In Tibetan it’s nyenpa kuntu chopai thob, which I’m not a hundred percent sure but I think it means always enjoying, always engaging. That remedy is reciting the Vajrasattva mantra. Then, we determine to not commit the action again, the power of resolve. Do you understand?

There are four opponent powers because a complete negative karma has these four things. Sorry, I made a little bit of a mistake. The results of the negative karma, the ripened-aspect result is rebirth in the lower realms. There are three suffering results when we are reborn in the human realm, but the ripened-aspect result of rebirth in the hell realm is the heaviest suffering.

A text I saw of a great lama mentioned that by killing a sentient being, the ripened aspect result [is rebirth in hell] for one eon. Then, there are the three other suffering results we experience in the human realm. For example, the possessed result of killing is to be born in a very dusty place, a very sad, very depressed place, where there is nothing green or pleasant. Because we harmed others, the place has a lot of war, a lot of contagious diseases; there is a lot of harm to our life. That is what we get by harming others. Do you understand? You have to know that. If we do not want to be sick, if we do not want problems in our life, we have to abstain from harming others; we have to abstain from negative karma. A place with a lot of danger, with a lot of harm to our life—that is the possessed result.

Then, there is experiencing the result similar to the cause. I want to tell you this. We experience being killed by other people. Other people cause danger to our life. That is experiencing the result similar to the cause of killing. It comes from our past karma of killing others.

For one complete negative karma [of killing] that has these four aspects gathered, there is the ripened aspect result, which is rebirth in the lower realms, then, in the human realm, there is the possessed result and experiencing the result similar to the cause, where our life is in danger. We experience being killed by another person due to our past karma of killing others.

In America, it has happened many times that anybody, even children, can have guns. I think there is a gun that can shoot many bullets. Trump said this was very good, and he allowed people to have these guns. Anyway, I forget exactly where they came from, but it has happened many times again and again that children in school killed many people.

Two or three years ago, a man killed many people in a theatre. He was just a normal working person. They thought he might be a strange person, so they checked, as many people would freak out if he was a strange person, but the found his life was quite normal, like themselves. Just as they had jobs, he did the same thing. There was nothing strange in his whole life, but that day he killed many people in the theatre. They were so shocked that he was not a strange person but the same as them. They could not explain why he killed many people that day because they don’t know karma; they don’t know Dharma.

This man on CNN, what is his name? Anderson Cooper. He is the main attraction on CNN. Anderson Cooper really wanted to know why it happened. He was asking people in the street why it happened. He knew they did not know the answer, but he was so eager to know. He didn’t ask His Holiness! That is experiencing the result similar to the cause. Those people killed by that man or those who are killed by a child from time to time, are experiencing the result similar to the cause, the result of their karma done in the past, having killed others. That is why the child killed many people, or that man killed so many people that day, even though he was the same as the people who checked on him.

The other result is creating the result similar to the cause. That means [because of our habit], we do it again. There is a Kopan monk, Norbu Lamsang. He is not here; he is in Italy working as a translator. He was working in our kitchen during Lama’s time. He was not the main cook but was helping or something, when he was beaten by Lama Pasang. I don’t know what it was but he had stolen something. He told me that, even though he knew that stealing is bad, it was no good, he had no choice. Even though he knew it was bad to steal, the idea of stealing came so strongly. That is very interesting. That is creating the result similar to the cause. Not only stealing but other actions we know to be bad, because the urge is so powerful, we have very little control; we engage in that action uncontrollably. Do you understand? That is the result of past negative karma creating the result similar to the cause.

Because of these four things, the Vajrasattva practice is the perfect confession. When we do the Vajrasattva practice even twenty-one times, with the remedy of the four opponent powers gathered, that is the perfect confession, the most powerful purification. Otherwise, it is not the perfect confession.

If you want to write it down, the meaning of the mantra is this. DORJE SEMPA… “you Vajrasattva generated.” THUG means the bodhicitta benefiting sentient beings, so DORJE SEMPA… “you Vajrasattva generated the thought.” [Tibetan] SAMAYA means “commitment,” like the samaya to liberate the mother sentient beings from samsara, the holy mind is enriched in that simultaneous holy action. What is the holy action? It is liberating mother sentient beings from samsara. “With great happiness.” [Tibetan] Whatever kind of life I have, a happy or unhappy one, “With great happiness I never give up my guide.” [Tibetan] “The realizations of the paths and bhumis.” [Tibetan] “To stabilize the qualities of the higher realm,” to actualize the eight common siddhis and the sublime mahamudra realization, enlightenment. And then maybe I left one out! “To generate the five wisdoms,” HA HA HA HA HOH, the five wisdoms. [Tibetan] “Please make this happen in my heart.” Maybe there is one left, I’m not sure. OK, that’s the main meaning. These are each pieces of Sanskrit, but if you integrate everything, what it means is like this.

I don’t clearly remember the meaning of OM VAJRASATTVA HUM, the short one, but it doesn’t matter. OK, that’s it. Now quickly.

If you can pay attention to the Vajrasattva practice every day, that is an unbelievable practice for you. It purifies however many negative karmas are collected in this life, every negative karma. It is unbelievable. As the saying says, even though the wise one’s negative karma is great, it becomes small for those knowing Vajrasattva. That is unbelievable. Because you always do Vajrasattva practice, which is unbelievable purification, there is no reason to fear death. Even when death happens, your mind is happy. There is no need to be concerned about being reborn in the lower realms. Then, you can achieve enlightenment quickly.

REPAYING THE KINDNESS OF SENTIENT BEINGS

The person who abuses us, who is angry at us, who hurts us, who always complains or whatever, that person is obscured and suffering. Seeing that, great compassion is generated. Great compassion is generated depending on that person. And from great compassion, bodhicitta is generated. From bodhicitta, the bodhisattva happens. From a bodhisattva, a buddha happens. From a buddha, the Buddha’s holy actions happen. The Buddha has two holy actions, one possessed by the Buddha’s own mind and one within us—our own virtuous thoughts and virtuous actions are this second type of the Buddha’s holy action. The Buddha’s holy action is within us sentient beings. Our good karma is the Buddha’s holy action.

From the Buddha’s holy action, which means from our virtuous actions, all happiness comes. From beginningless rebirths, now and in the future, all the way up to enlightenment, all our past, present and future happiness all comes from our virtuous actions, which is the Buddha’s holy action. Do you understand?

Even when we are tired, when we are feeling hot and a cooling breeze passes over our head or something, the pleasure we feel comes from the Buddha’s holy action, from our good karma. Because the Buddha’s holy action comes from the Buddha, all our past happiness from beginningless rebirths, all the happiness we have now and all the happiness we will have in the future, up to enlightenment, all comes from our good karma, even every single pleasure in a dream. Therefore, every single happiness comes from the Buddha.

Every single happiness comes from the Buddha; the Buddha comes from the bodhisattva; the bodhisattva comes from bodhicitta; bodhicitta comes from great compassion; and great compassion comes from that person who abused us, the obscured suffering sentient being. Compassion comes from them; compassion comes by depending on them. All our past, present and future happiness, every single pleasure, comes from them, the person who abuses us, the person who always hurts us, whatever.

Like that, we receive all our past, present and future happiness from every sentient being: from the numberless hell beings, the numberless hungry ghosts, the numberless animals—the ants, mosquitoes, the tiniest flies—the numberless human beings, the numberless sura beings, the numberless asura beings—from everyone we receive every single happiness, every single pleasure. That is unbelievable.

I don’t think I mentioned this during the course, but when we go for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, we are not only liberated from getting reborn in the suffering of the lower realms, we are liberated from samsara, from lower nirvana, and we are brought to enlightenment. And after we achieve enlightenment, we can liberate numberless sentient beings from samsara and bring them to full enlightenment. That is the main reason for taking refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

Now, where did the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha come from? From all the numberless sentient beings. From every sentient being, including this person who abuses us, who hurts us all the time. All the numberless buddhas, the numberless Buddha, Dharma and Sangha come from this person. Because they come from every sentient being, they come from this person! The numberless Buddha, Dharma and Sangha we take refuge in all come from this person. Therefore, we get all these benefits from this person who abuses us, who hurts us.

Therefore, this person is most kind, most precious, most dear to us. They are our wish-fulfilling gem. This person abuses us because we abused them in the past. It is the result of our karma, the result of how we treated this person in the past. As I mentioned the other day, whatever suffering we experience is because of what we did to those sentient beings in the past; it is the result of that. Otherwise, there is no harm we can receive without having harmed them before.

On top of that, they have been our mother from beginningless rebirths. As our mother, they gave birth to us, they protected us. Especially with a human rebirth, if the mother had not given us a human rebirth, if she had an abortion, we would not be here; we would have no opportunity to hear, to learn, to read, to write, to know the Dharma and achieve the three great meanings for sentient beings: achieving a higher rebirth and being free from samsara, and achieving nirvana and enlightenment. This would not happen, but because the mother gave us this precious human body—she did not have an abortion—with this unbelievable kindness we can do all this. This is unbelievable. It’s amazing. Then, she protected us a hundred times each day from obstacles, and she bore so many unbelievable hardships for us. She gave us an education. And she has done this from beginningless rebirths.

As our mother, all sentient beings have shown us the most unbelievable kindness. Therefore, we must repay that kindness. Just giving them money, food, shelter and so forth is good, but that alone does not become the answer. They have been Indra, Brahma, universal kings; they have had all the wealth in the past, but they still did not become free from samsara. What they need is to become free from samsara; what they need is to achieve enlightenment. That is what we need to help them do, in order to repay their kindness.

Now, generate great loving kindness thinking, “How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings were to have happiness. I will cause them to have happiness. I take the responsibility for their happiness. How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings were to be free from samsara. I will do that. I will free them from the oceans of samsaric sufferings. I must free them from samsara and bring them to enlightenment by myself alone. By myself alone!”

Even though there are numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas helping sentient beings every second, this is our responsibility, because all our three-time happiness is all due to the kindness of sentient beings. The opportunity to practice the Dharma now is by the kindness of sentient beings. Therefore, all our happiness is received by the kindness of sentient beings. So, even though there are numberless buddhas, Dharma and Sangha helping them, it is still our responsibility to free them from oceans of samsaric sufferings and to bring them to enlightenment by ourselves alone.

Therefore think, “I must achieve the state of omniscience otherwise I cannot do perfect work for sentient beings. Therefore, I’m going to take the Vajrasattva initiation, the jenang, the permission to practice.”

[The transcript of the Vajrasattva jenang is not available]

Notes

³² Quoted in a slightly different translation in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, p. 184. [Return to text]