Tantra

Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche explained that there are five buddha types. Each type of buddha is a remedy for a different delusion, a remedy for attachment or anger or pride, etc. So type or race is OK, but family or lineage doesn’t work. Rinpoche says, “Is there a buddha that doesn’t have a lineage?”

My most dear one,
Sorry for the long delay. The purpose of practicing Highest Yoga Tantra is to achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible in order to liberate sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment in the shortest possible time.

According to my observation the deities you have a connection with are Yamantaka and Heruka. Whichever of those two deities you feel a strong connection with, you can decide on that one.

Please make your life most meaningful with the thought of bodhichitta day and night and in every action you do.

With much love and prayers...

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!

My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind email.

The way to practice is first to have guru devotion realizations from your heart, so you see your guru as all the buddhas and all the buddhas are your guru, from your own side, not just for a few days, weeks, months or years, but for it to be stable, like that, without effort. Your guru devotion is stable, so that means the guru and the Buddha are oneness, not separate. There is no guru separate [from the Buddha] and there is no Buddha separate from the guru.

Then you should have realization of renunciation of samsara, as if you are in the midst of a fire while being in samsara, continually reincarnating, with these uncontaminated aggregates caused by delusion and karma, not being free from this. It’s like being in the center of a fire, or your naked body sitting on a thorn bush or being in prison when you don’t want to be in prison, even for a second. It’s like this, without effort from your side, feeling like this not just for weeks, months or years, but stable.

Then also like that having bodhicitta, effortless bodhicitta, the thought to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings day and night, effortlessly arising for weeks, months and years.

Then also emptiness—seeing the I as empty because it is dependent arising. The subtle dependent arising I is existing, but at the same time it is empty from its own side. Oneness. Realizing emptiness only helps the doer, the action doing and the object, and karma—cause and effect, virtue or non-virtue—so it should be like that and not contradictory to that. If what you find is contradictory to that, it means what you have been meditating on, that emptiness, is totally wrong.

On the basis of realization of bodhicitta, then do gross generation stage and subtle generation stage meditations. Then on the base of gross and subtle generation stage realizations, that helps for the completion stage realizations. According to Lama Tsongkhapa, this is the way to go. In other sects it might say without gross and subtle generation stage at all, and just do completion stage. It might say that, but I am not sure.

Otherwise I can’t say, if you have these preliminary realizations or not, you can’t just go without the foundation. You can’t just go to pick up the highest path and meditate on that; you can’t do that, just whatever you like. If people try to meditate on bodhicitta without renunciation, then bodhicitta will just be between the lips. There is no basis for strong compassion, because there is no basis for strong renunciation—to see yourself how samsara is suffering. Then you don’t see the deep sufferings of others, so it’s difficult to generate great compassion.

Otherwise there would be enlightened buddhas, but without having bodhicitta or renunciation or emptiness. How is that possible? It’s like the example of putting some rocks in a pot and saying, “I am making tea,” or trying to build a house on an ice mountain or even trying to walk on the icy mountain.

So this is just my initial response. I will read your email again in more depth later and check the texts.

With much love and prayers...

My most dear one,
A billion times thank you very much for your kind letter, it was very heartfelt. I can see through your letter that you are a very, very sincere person doing the practice well. You are not deceiving yourself. That is very good, so please continue. I am very happy with you.

Yes, I will do the initiation you requested. If I don’t give this initiation to you, then who should I give it to? If not you, then who?

With much love and prayers. Please continue your life as much as possible with bodhicitta.

Lama Zopa

P.S. You mentioned in your letter that I am enlightened, but from my side I am just an ordinary being. Of course, from your side it is guru devotion practice to think like this—looking from your side, to think you are looking at a buddha. From my side, sorry, I am not that, but to meditate that way is your business, for your enlightenment.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you for your kind letter. I loved your comment that even if I didn’t say anything but just looked, you would be satisfied. Regarding counting the tonglen practice and missing a day, it’s OK, you don’t have to start counting again from the beginning. It’s OK to add them.

Regarding your comment about not taking the Highest Yoga Tantra initiation—until you have realized renunciation, bodhicitta and wisdom realizing emptiness, yes you are right, but this may take time. All three realizations may not happen in this life or in a few years or a few months etc, therefore it’s better to take the Highest Yoga Tantra [initiation] before having the realizations, to make preparation for quick enlightenment. This plants the seed of tantra, at least to have effortful [experience of] renunciation, bodhicitta and emptiness, the correct understanding of emptiness, then it will be OK. Even if there is no realization, but you just generate effortful experience, that will be OK, otherwise you will miss out.

The four continents are the East, West, South and North. The human continent, where we are, is the Southern Continent. This is the only continent that has tantra and not only that, it is not all the time—just at this moment it exists and soon it’s going to end. Even bodhisattvas who are born in a pure land pray to be reborn in the Southern Continent in order to be able to meet tantra.

Regarding your comment about not visualizing the guru as Tara during the initiation—even though you didn’t visualize him in the form of Tara, if you thought of him as Tara then that’s OK, you have received the initiation. If you did not visualize him in the form of Tara, but you just thought of Tara, that is completely OK. However, you would have done some visualization during the initiation.

Please continue your life every day with a good heart and bodhicitta. In this way, your life is most beneficial to numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts and numberless animals—all the animals in the ocean, each type, so they are numberless; every small insect that you can only see with a microscope, but can’t see with the eye; all the animals that are large like mountains, and those on the ground—when you walk on the grass, so many times insects are jumping, trying to escape—and all those in the sky. Even when there is animal dung, there are so many small flies there, so [generate bodhicitta] for all of them; and for all of those who come alive in the summer due to the sunshine; and those that when you look at the sunbeam, actually there are so many insects, but when there is no sunbeam you can’t see them; and all the animals in the sky. So when you do something, generate bodhicitta for all sentient beings. When you do something with bodhicitta, then you can see not one sentient being is left out—not one person, not one hell being or animal, not one insect, not one bat is left out. Include all the billions of mackerel fish, so not one sentient being is left out.

With much love and prayers...