- Faith in the lineage and teacher,
- Purity of intention
- Readiness to practice the teaching with discipline.
A journey to a mysterious Himalaya snow land and it's unique Vajrayana Buddhism and the threatening culture.
Sunday, July 27, 2025
Chapter 3: The Meaning of Transmission in Vajrayana Buddhism
Saturday, February 15, 2025
The Four Aspects of Empowerment Rituals
Empowerment is to ripen or mature our buddha nature. Even though all beings possess the Buddha nature, without receiving empowerment it is not posspible to receive blessings and accomplishments through a particular practice, just as it will never be possible to get oil by pressing sand.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama says:
When an empowerment is conferred on you, it is the nature of your mind—the Buddha nature—that provides a basis upon which the empowerment can ripen you.
Through the empowerment, you are empowered into the essence of the buddhas of the five families. In particular, you are ‘ripened’ within that particular family through which it is your personal predisposition to attain Buddhahood.
What Is Empowerment?
Receiving a Vajrayana Empowerment is like planting a seed for enlightenment. A special and sacred rite, empowerment prepares our body, speech, and mind just as tilling the soil and adding nutrient-rich compost encourages the seed to sprout and grow.Even though we are Buddha nature, our self-doubts and confusion often keep us from connecting to it. So, empowerment is an important step toward our own enlightened mind.
An empowerment will introduce those attending to a single meditational deity, creating an auspicious connection with the awakened energies that the deity represents.After empowerment and instruction, a meditator is able to practice the meditation associated with that deity. This is a process in which the meditator relaxes their usual focus on themselves and practices being much more than one usually imagines oneself to be—a great awakened being with the skill to affect the world and its beings in a positive way.
There are usually four aspects to an empowerment ritual:(1) The vase empowerment prepares the body and removes impurities and hindrances that limit our view of ourselves;
(2) The speech or secret empowerment purifies our speech and supports correct practice;
(3) The wisdom empowerment refines our thinking and cleanses the mind of impediments and illusions.
(4) The word mahamudra empowerment distills our practice to focus on the very essence of the mind.
The Goddess of Healing - ParnasavariThe Refuge Vow is the first step on the Buddhist path. It is a statement of confidence in the path’s founder, the Buddha, and in our own qualities of goodness and potential to awaken just as he did.
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Footnote:
Vajrayana offers countless skillful and powerful methods that, when practiced correctly, can significantly accelerate the processes of accumulation and purification. It is crucial to have pure motivation and understand that Vajrayana practice is not intended to increase one's ego, power, or self-interest.
Thank you for reading. May you find peace and great bliss. Your support helps spread the Buddha’s precious teachings and turn the Dharma wheel in the world.
Aspiration for Bodhichitta:
May the precious Bodhichitta, which has not yet arisen, arise and not diminish, but rather increase further and further.
Dedication of Merit:
By this merit, may we swiftly attain omniscience. Having overcome the enemies of wrongdoing, may we liberate all beings from the ocean of existence, with its stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness, and death.
*Note
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Tuesday, October 22, 2024
The Great Manifestation of Avaloketishvara Bodhisattva - Mahakala
Mahakala is one of the most popular protector deities in Tibetan Buddhism, and he is also sometimes used as a meditational deity (yidam) in tantric Buddhist yogas.
He is depicted in a number of variations, each with distinctly different qualities and aspects. He is generally depicted as a wrathful deity.
What is the meaning of Mahakala? Mahakala: “Great Time." Mahakala is one of the most popular guardians in the Tibetan Buddhist pantheon.
Here he tramples a corpse while wielding a flaying knife and a blood-filled skull cup, signifying the destruction of impediments to enlightenment.In the crooks of his elbows he supports a gandi gong, a symbol of his vow to protect the community of monks. His principal companions, Palden Remati and Palden Lhamo, appear to his left, and Legden Nagpo and Bhutadamara are at his right.
At lower left is Brahmarupa blowing a thighbone trumpet. He is especially revered by the Sakya order, which commissioned this work.
This thangka, one of the earliest and grandest of this subject, can be related to murals preserved in the fifteenth-century Kumbum at Gyantse monastery, central Tibet, likely painted under Newari direction.
Mahakala appears as a protector deity in the various traditions of Vajrayana Buddhism, like Chinese Esoteric Buddhism, Shingon, and Tibetan Buddhism.
Numerous traditions of Mahayana Buddhism rely on Mahakala as a guardian deity (Dharmapala, "dharma protector"). Mahakala is one of the most popular protector deities in Tibetan Buddhism, and he is also sometimes used as a meditational deity (yidam) in tantric Buddhist yogas.He is depicted in a number of variations, each with distinctly different qualities and aspects. He is generally depicted as a wrathful deity.
Mahakala is also an important deity in East Asian Buddhism, where he is generally known as a protector figure. In Japanese Buddhism, Mahakala transformed into a more friendly wealth and luck deity, known as Daikokuten.Mahakala is commonly regarded as the emanation of different beings in different cases, such as Hevajra, Vajradhara, Amitabha, and Avalokiteshvara or Akshobhya Buddha.
Different tantric cycles, like Guhyasamaja and Chakrasamvara, each contain Mahakala as an emanation of their central Buddha deity.
Mahakala is almost always depicted with a crown of five skulls, which represent the transmutation of the five klesas (negative afflictions) into the five wisdoms.He also wears a garland consisting of fifty severed heads; the number fifty is in reference to the number of letters in the Sanskrit alphabet and is symbolic of the pure speech of Buddha.
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Thank you for reading. May you find peace and great bliss. With your support, it helps to spread the Buddha’s precious teachings and turn the Dharma wheels in the world.
Aspiration For Bodhichitta
For those in whom the precious Bodhichitta has not arisenMay it arise and not decrease. But increase further and further.
Dedication of Merit
By this merit, may we then obtain omniscience then.
Having defeated the enemies wrongdoing. May we liberate migratory from the ocean of existence.
With its stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness, and death.
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Picture(s) courtesy and credit to the rightful distributors and/or studios
The picture(s) are intended for editorial use only.
Monday, August 12, 2024
Milarepa meditate at the Holy Sacred Mount Kailash.
Mount Kailash—the Stairway to Heaven—is the most intriguing mountain range is the whole of Himalayas, so we thought of divulging some things that you might not know about it.
Despite the attention, Mount Kailash is still a mystery. The unconquered peak remains wrapped in myths, legends, and spiritual tales.
According to legend, Mount Kailash is his divine residence. Lord Shiva is said to reside there with his consort, the goddess Parvati. Hindu legend tells us that he sits atop the sacred mountain, meditating in perpetual stillness, surrounded by divine energies.
Hindu pilgrims do the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra to seek blessings and enlightenment by paying homage to the abode of Lord Shiva.
The Tibetan saint, Milarepa, is also associated with Mount Kailash. He is believed to have meditated in the caves surrounding the mountain.
Thousands of travelers enter Tibet each year to travel to the revered Mount Kailash. Few arrive in the area, and even fewer complete the whole circumambulation of the sacred peak. A few courageous mountaineers have tried to reach the peak, but they haven't been successful.
Trekking all the way up to the peak of Mount Kailash is held to be a forbidden act among Hindus for fear of trespassing on the sanctity of the mountain and disturbing the divine energies residing there.Climbing to the Peak of Mount Kailash is Impossible.
The 6,638-meter Mount Kailash is one of the few unconquered and unclimbable mountains in the world. One reason is the challenging terrain.
Mount Kailash has steep, icy slopes in extremely rugged surroundings. Harsh and often unpredictable weather much of the year would make it a very challenging mountain to climb.
More importantly, the religious significance of Mount Kailash as a sacred site stops people from climbing it. In the Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, and Bon faiths, climbing the mountain is forbidden. Respect for local beliefs discourages any attempts.Mount Kailash is Considered the Center of the World.
Part of the spiritual traditions involving Mount Kailash is that it is revered as the cosmic axis or center of the world. Often referred to as the "naval of the universe" in Tibetan Buddhist mythologies, it is the dwelling place of important deities and a sanctuary where the world was born.
Has anyone climbed Mount Kailash before? Who has climbed Mount Kailash?
Thursday, September 16, 2021
White Tara Long Life Prayer And Blessings
- Om - Representing the union of mind, body, and spirit that is at the heart of yoga.
- Tare – This syllable shows that Mother Tara liberates sentient beings from samsara.
- Tuttare – Liberates you from the eight fears related to the external dangers. However, the main dangers come from attachment, ignorance, anger, pride, miserliness, jealousy, doubt and wrong views.
- Ture – This syllable liberates you from the disease.
- Mama - Mine, means that I would like to possess the following qualities.
- Ayuh - Long life
- Punya - Merit that comes form living life ethically.
- Jnana - Wisdom
- Pustim - Abundance” or ”an increase in wealth.
- Kuru - Do so! do it now!
- Svaha - Hail, or may blessings be upon
Saturday, August 28, 2021
The King Of Prayers-Seven Line Prayer To Guru Rinpoche
So it's extremely powerful. And you should practice it at all times continually. If you really focus on the Seven-Line Prayer, then it is certain that the blessings will come. The blessings of Guru Rinpoche will spring out and be born in your mind stream.
Friday, August 6, 2021
西藏預防傳染病之藏藥 - 九味黑藥丸

本品是由八蚌寺佛教大學傳統製造工藝處秉承古代傳統藥方,根據西藏古老的 《四部醫典》第四章的內容醫藥實踐方法精心製作而成。 傳染病,即人、畜之間輾轉相傳的流行性瘟毒、疫窩。通常由顯而易 見的感冒症狀開始,迅速發展成為危及生命的惡毒性瘟疫,臨床表現不一。
在西藏的《四部醫典》裏,特別強調預防對於傳染病和邪魔病障造成的病痛 的重要性,更加明確地指出,流行性瘟疫憑藉呼吸、日光、氣味等,由外在 環境入侵體內,因此,提前預防為首要的任务。 預防可透過諸如藥物、咒語、 禪定等外在的方法,相互結合使用,從而起到避免疾病產生的作用。(邪魔病障指由天龍凶曜及妖魔等非人所致病害,如区曜中風和麻瘋病等。) 使用方法: 1、黑藥丸囊為佩戴使用,密封處請勿打開。在傳染病流行期間,或人群聚 集處,可將黑藥丸置入囊中,佩戴於頸項,亦可將藥囊放入貼身衣袋中,隨身攜帶。 2、必要時可打開藥囊,嗅間黑藥丸氣味;或將黑藥丸搗碎用火點燃然,以鼻孔吸取煙味。 特別注意:嚴禁口服。