Today you have entered in the race of tathagatas and the secrets of the tathagatas should not be shown to those who have not entered into the mandala or to those who have lost devotion—that means those who received initiation in the past, but have now lost devotion in the ___ tantra. So this is putting you under pledge, samaya.

In the confession practice, the General Confession says “transgressing the samaya of the secret mantra”, but [in the FPMT Prayer Book translation] it says “breaking the commitments of secret mantra”. I think that translation sounds more like you took a commitment during the initiation to recite mantra and then you break that, you’re unable to continue. But tantric samaya is not just that. Samaya is not just doing sadhana, not just reciting words. These things here are samaya. In the translation, it only seems to focus on you taking a commitment to recite a certain number of mantra or to do a sadhana and then not getting that done. But the samaya of the secret mantra is not just that. It should be “transgressing the samaya of the secret mantra”.

Here the meaning of mantra, yid-kyod-pa, is “protecting the mind”. On the basis of the three principal paths, protecting the mind by having renunciation of samsara, which protects from attachment to samsara; protecting the mind by living in bodhicitta, which protects from self-cherishing thought; then by meditating on emptiness, with that awareness protecting the mind from ignorance. The meaning of mantra is protecting the mind on the basis of this yid-kyod-pa.

Here, by practicing pure appearance—yourself as the deity that you will achieve in the future; the place transformed into the mandala that you will actually manifest or experience in the future, the result-time mandala; and your actions visualized as the holy actions you will do when you become a buddha, how you will benefit sentient beings. When you become a buddha each beam from your holy body purifies and liberates from suffering in one second uncountable numbers of sentient beings, so you visualize that happening now. Then, when you become a buddha you will have pure enjoyments to the completely pure senses, so that one you visualize now by stopping the impure appearance of enjoyments.

This is how tantric practice protects your mind from ordinary appearance and ordinary concept. From ordinary appearance comes ordinary concept, then delusion, anger, attachment, all these rise, and pride, the jealous mind and so on, which create the cause for samsara.

Therefore, how tantra protects the mind is by living everything pure. This protects the mind from the impure, ordinary appearance—oneself as an ordinary person, the enjoyments as ordinary, ordinary food, ordinary place, and all that. Tantra protects the mind from the ordinary appearance and concept. So your mind looking at everything as pure, by visualizing everything pure becomes the tantric path. It becomes the quick path to enlightenment because it collects inconceivable merits in such a short time. There’s so much merit, it’s like an atomic bomb, such powerful purification. That’s how it becomes the quick path to enlightenment. This is just talking about the generation stage, not the completion stage. It becomes the quick path and makes you achieve enlightenment within one lifetime. Without practicing tantra, just only practicing the sutra Mahayana path, you have to collect merit for three countless great eons. By only practicing the Mahayana paramitayana you cannot achieve enlightenment within one life. You have to collect merit for three countless great eons. Only then can you achieve enlightenment. So it takes a long time to achieve enlightenment. That means that during that time those sentient beings who have a karmic connection with you, who depend on you to help them, to give them teachings and develop their path and bring them to enlightenment have to suffer for a long time. They have to suffer for three countless great eons. They have to wait for you for a long time. That’s the reason why we practice tantra. Why? The main goal is so that other sentient beings don’t have to suffer for a long time.

Here I want to mention something to give you more understanding of why we need to practice tantra. Otherwise practicing tantra might become just another trip, like in the1960s or around those times, when there were drugs like hashish, LSD and marijuana. I don’t know when marijuana started. That was a trip and there were many other trips after that. So practicing tantra might become some new thing you try in the life, another trip.

This might help your understanding. For many years the centers in Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong have been liberating animals quite often. In Singapore there is one student who is a captain in the army. He wants to liberate one hundred million animals. He has already liberated nearly eleven million. He wanted to liberate them for His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s long life, for Ribur Rinpoche’s long life, for my long life and maybe for other things. He gets up at four o’clock in the morning and does his practice for four hours in the morning, then he goes to work. In the daytime he gives training to the army and during the military training he has to stand so while he’s standing he does his commitments or he does other practice. He’s a very dedicated person. He has a very strong mind to benefit for sentient beings. He’s young, not an old person, maybe twenties or thirties.

So what I was going to say is this: one time we bought a few snakes, besides many frogs. I think I asked them to liberate a few snakes because snakes are cut all the way along their bodies. Snakes have a very long body and they cut all the way down it while they are alive. You can’t imagine if somebody cut your body alive. This is what they do. The snakes were bought the night before and were in the sack overnight so when we liberated them they were quite puzzled. They couldn’t move easily, like drugged.

That time the thought came into my mind that if you liberate the snakes they will eat the mice, frogs and many other animals. If you liberate them it is dangerous for the rest of the animals. If you don’t liberate them, they’ll be killed. So what to do? That question came into my mind. How to help? If you help the snake, then it will kill and harm so many other sentient beings. If you don’t liberate it then the snake suffers so much. What can be done?

Later the thought came into my mind that the only solution is Dharma practice. One has to practice Dharma and liberate oneself from samsara, and then reveal Dharma to others and liberate others. By teaching Dharma to others, they can practice and actualize the path and then free themselves from delusion and karma, and from samsaric suffering. This is the only solution. As long as you don’t do that, as long as this doesn’t happen, sentient beings have to suffer continuously. That’s one example. Therefore, we should practice tantra so that sentient beings do not have to suffer for a long time, so they can be liberated from samsara by us as quickly as possible.

The other thing is: how many insects get killed when we are walking on the ground? And when we drive the car there are not only flies that die on the car but also so many ants and so many insects in the road that die. Probably, we don’t normally think much about this, so we don’t notice it much but so many get killed. For example, when somebody came to ask Nagarjuna, who was the great propagator of the Buddha’s Mahayana teachings, especially emptiness, to make charity of his head no knives could cut off his head. Nothing could cut off his head. Then Nagarjuna asked for one grass and with one grass they were able to cut his neck. Why? Because a long time ago, when he was a farmer he was cutting grass and an ant’s head was cut by the grass. This karma was still to be experienced so therefore, no knife could cut his neck, but only one grass was able to cut it. That’s a result of that past karma.

It is similar with food. There are so many insects living on food that have to be killed. When it’s from the supermarket we don’t see all these, but if you have your own garden then you see so many insects living on these vegetables. So many sentient beings have to die and have to be killed for us to get all these enjoyments and comfort. Just for us to survive so many sentient beings have to die. Therefore it is so important to be free from samsara as quickly as possible. Now, what is the solution for you to not be harmful to other sentient beings? What is the solution so that numberless other sentient beings don’t have to suffer and die and create negative karma for you to receive all the enjoyments, house, clothing, food and so forth? Do you want it to be like that all the time? Do you want to be born in samsara and see so many sentient beings have to die, create negative karma, harm and suffer for you? No, you don’t want this! So the solution is to get out of samsara by ceasing the delusions and karma, the causes of samsara, as quickly as possible. That happens only by practicing Dharma. That happens only by practicing Dharma. You cannot make youself free from samsara by taking medicine, having an operation or making some special machine to cease the delusions using technology. It happens only by practicing Dharma.

And that can happen quickly only by practicing tantra. To free oneself quickly from samsara and to be able to liberate numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment as quickly as possible, we must practice tantra. Tantra offers the method to achieve enlightenment quickly. That’s the purpose of practicing tantra and how important it is. Tantra is not just a trip. It’s not just trying some new thing in life because you got bored doing something else before and now you want to try some new thing. Tantra is something of extreme importance and urgency. It is something incredibly deep and profound that has skies of benefit.

Sometimes you may have questions about these things, so my explanation here might help. This is the solution. Otherwise as long as you are in samsara there will always be so many other sentient beings that you have to harm for your survival or so many other sentient beings who have to suffer and die for you. There’s no other way.

Then the guru action vajra stretched out his hand to you—it’s like the attendant who does the activity for the guru. He came out with a vajra in his hand, then you grab the hand and he took you inside the mandala. Okay.

[Rinpoche recites]

Then think you are inside. Physically the curtain of the mandala is opened and the meditation is that you think you are inside the mandala.

Now invoking wisdom and for that offering a mandala.

[Rinpoche and audience recite]

Please repeat this request.

[Rinpoche recites and audience repeats back]

Then instantly you become Buddha Mitukpa. You have the photo. The whole aspect is in the nature of light. The holy body is in the nature of light. Then, at your heart is a moon disc and a blue HUNG in the center. Beams emitted from the guru’s heart—the guru visualized as Mitukpa—hit the mandala deities and pursued the holy mind. Then from their hearts, beams emitted away and it hit all the buddhas and bodhisattvas’ hearts, pursued their holy minds and then from all of their hearts, their transcendental wisdom in the form of innumerable numbers of blue syllable HUNGs came like snowfall and absorbed at your heart HUNG. Please meditate strongly on this one. From all the buddhas and bodhisattvas’ hearts, the transcendental wisdom of their holy minds in the form of blue HUNGS absorbed at your heart HUNG like snowfall. Innumerable numbers also came from the guru’s heart and bless your heart. Meditate very strongly on this.

[Rinpoche recites with bells]

[Rinpoche recites]

Then sealed with the vajra.

[Rinpoche recites]

This stabilized the wisdom invoked within you. Then, the vajra with the mudra of samaya blessed your hearts with the mantra. Now, the lama requests the deity in the mandala to please show which Buddha’s lineage or race the disciples brought into the mandala will achieve and what kind of merit they have, what attainment they can achieve. Then you hold the flower that was given to you before between the two palms and visualize garlands of jewels. Beams emitted from the three syllables OM, AH, HUNG totally illuminated you, purifying all the defilements and negative karmas. You are in the presence of the deity in the mandala with the entourage and you offer flower garlands to the crown of the deity with the mantra OM PRATITZA BENDZA HOH. We have to recite that mantra when we offer.

[Pause]

Maybe we recite one time Twenty-one Tara praise.

You already got the explanation about cleaning the house, putting down the seat and all that. The other things are: generating oneself into Mitukpa and blessing the dispelling water, then the gek tor, giving torma to the interferers, who interfere with the retreat. After that is making the retreat mark—that’s something that you put down and generate into a protector so as not to allow any obstacles to enter or the attainment to go out—and giving torma to that. Then there’s also giving torma to the landlord, making offering and asking not to interfere and to help. That means the landlord in the world and also in the area. Then there is blessing your three doors, blessing the place, and also blessing the enjoyments. These things are the preliminaries and then you begin the sadhana after that. This is the basic instruction for how to begin a retreat. Then, by thinking about impermanence and death and cutting the eight worldly dharmas, the worldly thoughts, do strong meditation on bodhicitta and begin the session. Normally you don’t count the mantra in that first session as part of the retreat, you don’t start to count till the next morning.

To go through this with some explanation will take till sunrise! I think by that time it will be dinner time! Anyway, we started the tradition to do extensive guru yoga practice, Lama Chöpa first thing in the morning and then to do the other sessions after that. So tomorrow get familiar with the Lama Chöpa practice, which you are going to be doing first thing in the morning.

By giving some more explanation, then when you do other retreats alone you will know the procedure, you will know what to do. That’s one way to learn. So if you are going to do Chenrezig retreat, Compassion Buddha or Medicine Buddha retreat, you can do it in a similar way. The procedure is the same, just the deity is different. Once you know how to do one, then you know how to begin other retreats.

In Highest Tantra, Vajrayogini, Heruka, and other deities, some of the deities have texts on how to begin the retreat and how to do the retreat. I already translated for Vajrayogini how to begin the retreat, the preliminaries for the retreat, and the longer instruction by Pabongka Rinpoche on how to do the retreat. Yamantaka is also translated, I think by Glen Mullin. And Tara. I don’t know whether anybody has translated how to begin the retreat for Guhyasamaja. There’s a text for each deity on how to begin the retreat, and then how to do the retreat.

I do have the wish to translate all of these. Vajrayogini and Heruka I have already done how to begin the retreat. Then there’s Yamantaka and Guhyasamaja. To have these texts on how to begin the retreat and how to do the retreat translated and made available for people makes it easy for people to know how to do retreat. Otherwise first you have to find someone to ask, which can be difficult, then even if you have somebody to ask you have to find a translator and if the translator can’t translate or maybe mistranslates you have another problem. There are so many problems and difficulties. I have already translated the Heruka texts. There is a very good text explained by one very high lama that I translated many years ago with Basili, when he was Lama Osel’s attendant.

Due to all the past, present and future merits collected by me and the three times’ merits collected by others, may the bodhicitta be actualized within one’s own mind and heart, in the minds of all sentient beings without delay even a second and may that which has been generated be increased. Especially may bodhicitta be generated in the hearts of those people in the countries of this world where there’s a lot of violence, wars, fighting, killing and sicknesses immediately without delay even a second. May bodhicitta be generated in the hearts of all the different religious people who have so much lack of compassion and bodhicitta, and where there has been so much war and fighting for hundreds and hundreds of years. And may compassion and bodhicitta be generated in the hearts of everyone, in all those who follow different religions, especially the Muslim people’s hearts. So this is the only solution, praying, practicing compassion oneself in everyday life and teaching compassion to others. This is the only solution and prayer. The only solution is for bodhicitta to be generated in the minds of others. This is the best way to bring world peace. Even if one by one you have to help and inspire others to practice compassion so that each person can bring world peace Especially, so that each person can stop harming and instead bring benefit others. Each person can bring world peace.

May the officials in mainland China who have power and control, generate bodhicitta in their minds and strong devotion to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. May they be able to follow exactly what His Holiness the Dalai Lama wishes and invite His Holiness to China to spread the Dharma like the sun rising, besides spreading Dharma in Tibet even more than before, with total freedom.

One thing that I left out is that after the gek tor, you visualize the protection wheel and that time normally when you do are doing the retreat alone or more strictly in a small group you decide which doctor can come if you’re sick, which people are going to taking care of you and who is going to be allowed inside the retreat place. You think of anyone that you’re going to meet, making it clear from beginning.

[Rinpoche and audience recite Jang chub sem chog…]

[Rinpoche and audience recite]

Due to all the three time merits collected by oneself and by others, may the virtuous friends have all their holy wishes succeed immediately, especially the Buddha of Compassion, His Holiness Dalai Lama.

[Rinpoche and audience recite Gang ri ra wae...]

[Rinpoche recites Pal den la mai ku tse den pa dang...]

Due to all the past, present and future merit, all the three times’ merits collected by oneself and by others, which are empty from their own side, may the I, who is also empty from its own side achieve Mitukpa’s enlightenment, which is empty from its side and lead all the sentient beings, who are also empty from their own side, to that enlightenment, which is also empty from its own side, by myself alone, who is also empty from its own side.

I dedicate all my merits to be able to follow all the holy extensive teachings that the bodhisattvas Samantabhadra and Manjughosha realize. I dedicate all my merits in the way the three times’ buddhas and bodhisattvas dedicate their merits.

May the general teachings of the Buddha and particularly Lama Tsongkhapa’s teaching spread in all directions and flourish forever. May I be able to cause this to happen.

[Rinpoche recites Cho kyi gyal po...]

Okay, Good night. So, do the last part, completion.