A Practitioner's Guide to Mantra (1/3)

All Buddhist mantras were taught by the historical Buddhas, or his emanations.

Introduction on how mantras and malas are used in Tibetan Buddhism:

Tibetan Buddhist mantras are words originally spoken by a Buddha while deep in meditation. Reciting them helps to replace the endless internal chatter of the mind with calming syllables that purify karmic imprints, bring beneficial energy, focus concentration, and offer protection and blessings.

Chanting a mantra cannot by itself liberate a person from cyclic existence. While chanting, one also must transform and focus one's thoughts.

To engage the mind in this way requires preparation—receiving teachings from a qualified master, reflecting on and contemplating those teachings, and engaging in skillful meditation practice. 

The fundamental reason for the use of mantras in meditation is the deity.

Why are mantras said in Tibetan Buddhism? What is their significance and power?

Mantras are customarily an important aspect of Tibetan Buddhist practice. They usually correspond to specific deities; each deity has one or more mantras associated with him or her. Therefore, the reason for reciting a specific mantra is the wish to achieve the qualities associated with that specific deity. 

If someone wishes to develop discernment, they might meditate on Manjushri and recite his mantra.

If purification is the main emphasis in practice, meditation on Vajrasattva and the recitation of his 100-syllable or six-syllable mantra are recommended.  

Om Mani Padmi Hung 

The most commonly practiced mantra is OM Mani PADME HUM, the principal mantra of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva who embodies the compassion of all Buddhas. 

The development of impartial love and compassion is the essence of spiritual practice; in the same way, this mantra is the essence of all mantras. 

Its six syllables prevent rebirth in the six realms of samsara and contain the essence of the buddhas who liberate the six realms, as well as the essence of the six perfections practiced in the Mahayana. 

The fundamental reason for the use of mantras in meditation on deities is that a deity's mantra is no different than that of that of that deity himself or herself.

You can regard the recitation of a mantra as calling a deity by name, and indeed, many mantras are phrased in that way. But really, a mantra is more than the deity's name; it is the deity appearing as sound. For that reason, the written form of a mantra is regarded as a type of Nirmanakaya Buddha.

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Aspiration For Bodhichitta
For those in whom the precious Bodhichitta has not arisen
May 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 wrongdoings
May we liberate migratory from the ocean of existence.
With its stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness, and death.

*Note

I do not own or infringe any copyright on the picture(s).
Picture(s) courtesy and credit to the rightful distributors and/or studios
The picture(s) are intended for editorial use only.

Method of Recitation

Recitation of the mantra. The sound of recitation shouldn’t be too fast or too slow, neither too strong nor too weak. The requirement for standard recitation is very stringent—coughing, spitting, walking, etc. are forbidden, or the count of recitation would be deducted. 

Among all the offenses, talking is the most serious. So, it is best to refrain from talking during mantra recitation.

The so-called recitation practice that we normally adopt—without visualization, talking, or eating while reciting—is highly inappropriate. At best, it can only reduce the negative karma caused by unwholesome speech.

When undertaking the regular deity practice, we must also meet certain requirements regarding the use of prayer beads or malas. 

After the malas have been blessed by the master, they should be worn all the time, either on the neck or on the wrist, not to be kept away from the warmth of the body, not to be seen or touched by people who are not tantric Buddhists, not to be left in unclean places, etc. 

There are specifications for the color and the material of the malas as well. Moreover, the malas cannot be used to count things other than the recitations of a mantra, because the malas will otherwise lose its power of blessing. 

Normally, it is best to use bodhi beads for mantra recitation. Nowadays, many people like to use counters instead. But using prayer beads is still the better choice, unless in special circumstances where it is inconvenient. 

We should not see prayer beads as just a counting device; if used properly in accordance with the Dharma, the merit related to mantra recitation can increase manyfold.

During the period of undertaking the formal yidam practice, one should not commit to doing anything else, not even things like transmitting the Dharma to benefit sentient beings, because the practice will be negatively affected. 

Naturally, the requirements are not as strict for other occasions, such as attending puja or reciting a mantra during the preliminary practice. 

While practicing mantra recitation, certain types of food should also be avoided, such as garlic, scallion, animal’s tongue, etc. 

If one adheres strictly to these requirements, a varying degree of success in achieving results can be expected after the session of meditation is over, but the actual accomplishment still depends on one’s own faculty and level of diligence.

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Do you earnestly cherish our devoted work? Assuming this is the case, we are delighted that you are finding our blog useful and valuable. Would you consider making a donation for our Buddhist research and development?

We need your help to secure the future of scholarly interaction with Buddhism. Since our very first publication of Dharma works and activities in 2008, we have been effortlessly providing free distribution of Dharma posts and articles throughout the previous 16 years. 

We have exceptionally constrained support and do not receive subsidies or funding from people in general.

Please help us develop our Dharma activities that will not only benefit you but all Dharma readers on the planet. Please consider showing your support. Your generosity will certainly help us enhance our work and accomplish more for a better and brighter future.

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 arisen
May 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 wrongdoings
May we liberate migratory from the ocean of existence.
With its stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness, and death.

*Note
I do not own or infringe any copyright on the picture(s).
Picture(s) courtesy and credit to the rightful distributors and/or studios
The picture(s) are intended for editorial use only.

Yoga of Deity’s Activity of the Generation Stage (5/5)

 

Deity yoga engages creative visualization as a skillful means of personal transformation through which the practitioner (sadhaka) visualizes a chosen deity (yidam) as part of a mandala or refuge tree in order to transform their experience of the appearance aspect of reality.

The yoga of activity is to accomplish, through the light radiating from mantras, the four The yoga of activity is to accomplish, through the light radiating from mantras, the four activities that the Buddha undertook to turn the wheel of Dharma and deliver sentient beings from suffering.

For example, in the practice of Vajrasattva, visualize the heart mantra of Vajrasattva radiating light and, on top of the light, abundant offerings to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in the ten directions, and receiving blessings from deities in the ten directions. 

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When the light is absorbed back; then visualize again the mantra radiating light downwards to shine on sentient beings in the six realms, especially those in the three lower realms, so as to eliminate their suffering. 

These are the activities of the deity.activities that the Buddha undertook to turn the wheel of Dharma and deliver sentient beings from suffering.

Our activities in everyday life can be transformed into those of the Buddha through the yoga of activity.

The sadhana of Vajrasattva contains these four yogas: first visualize Vajrasattva; next visualize the mantra on the moon disc and recite the hundred-syllable mantra; then visualize the light emanating from the mantra, etc. 

Because this practice is part of the preliminaries, it does not particularly emphasize the idea of emptiness, but actually, the state of emptiness is also needed for this practice. 

People often ask which yidam practice they should do or who their own yidam is. The fact is, there is no way to do the yidam practice if one doesn’t know how to practice the generation stage, and there will be no result if the quality of the generation stage is not up to standard. 

On the other hand, if one has practiced the preliminaries well and undertakes the generation stage seriously, one can hope to attain some results from the yidam practice as well. 

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We need your help to secure the future of scholarly interaction with Buddhism. Since our very first publication of Dharma works and activities in 2008, we have been effortlessly providing free distribution of Dharma posts and articles throughout the previous 16 years. 

We have exceptionally constrained support and do not receive subsidies or funding from people in general.

Please help us develop our Dharma activities that will not only benefit you but all Dharma readers on the planet. Please consider showing your support. Your generosity will certainly help us enhance our work and accomplish more for a better and brighter future.

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 arisen
May 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 wrongdoings
May we liberate migratory from the ocean of existence.
With its stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness, and death.

*Note
I do not own or infringe any copyright on the picture(s).
Picture(s) courtesy and credit to the rightful distributors and/or studios
The picture(s) are intended for editorial use only.

The Four Yogas of the Generation Stage (4/5)

Those who have advanced to the Bodhisattva grounds are able to accomplish myriad activities, such as practicing the six paramitas, delivering sentient beings on an inconceivable scale, even purifying their own negative karma, and so on, all through the power of meditation. 

Whereas ordinary people are often left exhausted, having to use our words to spread the Dharma and actions to benefit sentient beings, but with limited results.

A person’s body, speech, mind, and activity make up the whole person. Likewise, a Buddha’s body, speech, wisdom, and activities to free sentient beings from suffering encompass all the qualities of the Buddha. 

Not only tantra but sutra also acknowledges that ultimately the body of a sentient being can be the body of the Buddha, the words of sentient beings can become the words of the Buddha , the defiled minds of sentient beings the wisdom of the Buddha, and the activities of sentient beings the Buddha’s activities to deliver all to liberation, but sutra offers no specific method to make such a transformation. 

On the other hand, many skillful means are available in tantra to free sentient beings from suffering. Through the four yogas, which are unique to Vajrayana, the body, speech, mind, and activities of sentient beings can be transformed into those of the Buddha.

Deity yoga engages creative visualization as a skillful means of personal transformation through which the practitioner (sadhaka) visualizes a chosen deity (yidam) as part of a mandala or refuge tree in order to transform their experience of the appearance aspect of reality. 

Yoga of Deity’s Form

This is essentially a visualization of the deity’s physical form and mandala. Through this visualization, the body of a sentient being can be transformed into, made to manifest as, or purified as the body’s original state—the body of the divine.

Most people are troubled by two problems: one is not being able to visualize clearly, and the other is not being able to keep the mind still during sitting meditation.

A discursive mind needs samatha meditation as its antidote. If the visualization is not clear, it is because one is either not doing the visualization practice satisfactorily or does not understand the visualization method and technique. 

A brief introduction to this method was given in my discussion on the Vajrasattva practice in the Luminous Wisdom Series, but I shall repeat it here and focus on the key points.

At the outset of practicing the generation stage, we need an external object to help with visualization; otherwise, it would be quite hard to just rely on our own imagination to form a deity image, something only people of superior faculty can achieve. 

However, the situation today is quite absurd. Regardless of the individual’s capacity, everyone practices visualization like a person of superior faculty, without the help of any external object; the result can be nothing but failure.

Here, the external object is a thangka. When we do the Vajrasattva practice, we need a thangka of Vajrasattva. First, look at the thangka to visualize the deity; next, without looking at the thangka, practice the visualization by memory; and lastly, transfer the deity image on the thangka to our own body, that is, visualize our own body as that of the deity. Just do this step by step. 

There are three ways to visualize the details of the image. The first is for people of superior faculty. One just visualizes directly in the mind without any external assistance. For example, when visualizing the third eye on the forehead of the wrathful deity, the vision will appear clearly in the mind right away.

The second is for people of average faculty. When doing visualization, one does not rely on a thangka but instead on one’s own voice or words by muttering to oneself: the deity’s eyes have five colors, the pupil in the center is very dark, then white, finally red, and so on. 

It is not necessary to follow any sadhana; just using plain words will do. Visualize as the words are spoken. It has the same effect as doing visualization while reading the sadhana—reading without visualization is not effective, whereas visualizing without reading is hard to do. Be sure to speak slowly.

The third is for people of inferior faculty. In this case, one must rely on a detailed picture of the parts to be visualized. For example, photograph or scan the deity’s eyes, enlarge them, and print out the picture fit for visualization. Then repeatedly practice visualization as mentioned above.

Four is when a person who is truly practicing the generation stage should visualize this way rather than just generate a blurred image or indistinct outline of the deity during visualization, as we normally do.

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We need your help to secure the future of scholarly interaction with Buddhism. Since our very first publication of Dharma works and activities in 2008, we have been effortlessly providing free distribution of Dharma posts and articles throughout the previous 16 years. 

We have exceptionally constrained support and do not receive subsidies or funding from people in general.

Please help us develop our Dharma activities that will not only benefit you but all Dharma readers on the planet. Please consider showing your support. Your generosity will certainly help us enhance our work and accomplish more for a better and brighter future.

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 arisen

May 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 wrongdoings

May we liberate migratory from the ocean of existence.

With its stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness, and death.

*Note

I do not own or infringe any copyright on the picture(s).

Picture(s) courtesy and credit to the rightful distributors and/or studios

The picture(s) are intended for editorial use only.

The Three Samadhis of The Generation Stage (3/5)

The Three Samadhis

According to the tantras of Nyingmapa, the generation stage consists of three types of samadhi: the samadhi of thusness, the samadhi of universal manifestation, and the causal samadhi.

Through the three samadhis, the three phases in samsara, it's the death, intermediate state, and rebirth. 

These three phases can be transformed into the dharmakaya, sambhogakaya, and nirmanakaya of the Buddha. The three kayas are the fruition, the three samadhis are the path, and the three phases in samsara are the impure ground.

The Samadhi of Thusness. 

Thusness means realm of truth (dharmadhatu), nature of reality (dharmata), emptiness, and luminosity. The samadhi of thusness is meditation on emptiness. Once the pre-meditation steps of taking refuge, generating Bodhicitta, and praying to the guru have all been completed, practice the samadhi of thusness. 

If one has attained realization, just abide in the state of realization, but not too long. One who has not gained realization should maintain firm belief in the view that the nature of all phenomena is emptiness; this is said to be a similar version of the samadhi of thusness—not real samadhi, only close to it.

Through the samadhi of thusness, death can be transformed into or purified as dharmakaya, a practice that is unique to tantra. Although the sutra also practices emptiness, it does not have the power to purify, only to eliminate defilement, because it lacks the tantric view. 

Another function of the samadhi of thusness is to destroy the view of eternalists. For in the subsequent practices, all the mandalas of the Buddhas are also perceived to be of an empty nature; nothing exists permanently. Therefore, the samadhi of thusness is able to abolish the eternalist view.

The Samadhi of Universal Manifestation

Universal manifestation refers to phenomena, primarily great compassion. After the completion of the samadhi of thusness, practice great compassion toward sentient beings who have not gained realization of emptiness; it need not be long.

One of the functions of the samadhi of universal manifestation is to transform the bardo body into or purify the body as sambhogakaya. 

Although the sutra also practices great compassion, it does not have the ability to purify because it lacks the view that sentient beings are Buddhas already. Another function of the samadhi of universal manifestation is to eradicate the nihilistic view. 

When a realized practitioner practices great compassion and loving kindness while in the enlightened state, compassion and loving kindness are in union with emptiness and at once illusory; when the view of Vajrayana is added, this practice is empowered to effect transformation or purification.

If the first two samadhis are missing, a practitioner who is undertaking the practice of the wrathful deity will develop attachment to the wrathful deity due to ignorance of the void nature of the deity; absent compassion, if such a person holds the wrong view or mistaken aspiration at the time of death, he or she may end up being a demon or evil spirit with supernatural power in the next life, causing great harm to sentient beings. 

This is why the two samadhis are indispensable. If all the generation stages can be practiced around the framework of these two samadhis, there will be no room for mistake because the practice is based on emptiness and compassion.

Visualization not based on the view of emptiness and compassion is also practiced by non-Buddhists; some of these visualizations are quite powerful as well, but they do not lead to liberation. 

In other words, with no concept of emptiness nor foundation in compassion, one cannot attain any supramundane accomplishment in the deity practice. 

The Causal Samadhi

Attaining Buddhahood is called the resultant stage. As we have not yet attained Buddhahood, it is called the causal stage. In actuality, all phenomena are the mandala of the Buddha; cause and result are inseparable, but there is still a discrepancy between cause and result on the surface.

The causal samadhi covers a very broad range, including visualizations of all the peaceful and wrathful deities.

*Footnote 

For those who have received the empowerment of this Tantric practise, you are reminded not to intentionally or unintentionally disclose the mantra to the public or anyone who may not have the empowerment or permission to practise, and disclosing the mantra intentionally or unintentionally is a form of breaking your Tantric Samaya vows to the lineage masters and Dharma protectors.

Please consult your Guru or a qualified lineage master for Vajrayana practise! Should a devotee even want to start studying and contemplating the Vajrayana practise, then it is truly necessary to first have completed the preliminaries and to be certain that Bodhicitta has arisen and developed in one’s mind. 

Vajrayana features countless skillful and powerful methods that, if practised in the proper way, can make the process of accumulation and purification incredibly swift and direct. It is absolutely necessary to have pure motivation and to know that Vajrayana practise is not carried out to increase one’s own ego, power, or self-interest. 

Donations for our Buddhist research and development

Do you earnestly cherish our devoted work? Assuming this is the case, we are delighted that you are finding our blog useful and valuable. Would you consider making a donation for our Buddhist research and development?

We need your help to secure the future of scholarly interaction with Buddhism. Since our very first publication of Dharma works and activities in 2008, we have been effortlessly providing free distribution of Dharma posts and articles throughout the previous 16 years. We have exceptionally constrained support and do not receive subsidies or funding from people in general.

 

Please help us develop our Dharma activities that will not only benefit you but all Dharma readers on the planet. Please consider showing your support. Your generosity will certainly help us enhance our work and accomplish more for a better and brighter future.

 

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 arisen

May 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 wrongdoings

May we liberate migratory from the ocean of existence.

With its stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness, and death.

 

*Note

I do not own or infringe any copyright on the picture(s).

Picture(s) courtesy and credit to the rightful distributors and/or studios

The picture(s) are intended for editorial use only.

The Efficacy of The Generation Stage - (2/5)

The treatise Establishing Phenomena as Divine by Rongzom Pandita explicates the view of the generation stage. First of all, we should know that the essence of all things is the mandala of the Buddha. To reveal this mandala and actualize its theoretical view, we must rely on the practice of the generation stage. 

The generation stage is the best skillful means to forcibly realise the truth that “all phenomena are the mandala of the Buddhas.”

Vajrayana holds that ordinary people have two kinds of attachment: the first is attachment to phenomena, that is, attachment to the inherent impurity of phenomena; the second is attachment to phenomena being not only impure but also real. 

Encompassed in the second attachment are the Sutrayana notions of “attachment to self of person” and “attachment to self of phenomena.”

The first attachment can be eliminated with the practice of the generation stage. However, if we know only the method but not the view, confusion may arise during the practice—for instance, one might ask whether this practice is the same as the white skeleton visualization in Theravada, wherein an illusion is produced after the visualization. 

Such confusion can cause great obstacles to our practice; hence, it is important to establish the view—to resolutely believe that all phenomena are the mandala of the Buddha. On the other hand, having the view but not actually applying it to practice, the knowledge remains always just theoretical. 

Even if we can accept the view that all phenomena are the mandala of the Buddha, there is no way we can really experience how that is so. This is why we need the practice. 

Most people believe the world as we know it will always stay the same as long as our sense organs do not change accidentally over the course of life. This is why the present world appears real, stable, but also impure to us.

But in fact, this is not so. Let’s first put aside the argument whether the world exists or not. Even if it exists, the world cannot affect us in any way if our five sense organs do not interact with it; it is the same as if it does not exist.

For example, if our ear consciousness stops perceiving sound waves, then it does not matter, objectively speaking, whether sound waves exist or not. If they are perceived, sound in the impure state is a phenomenon of our mind; in the pure state, sound is transformed into the words of the Buddha. 

After the generation stage practice is accomplished, this so-called unchanging world will be completely inverted. All impure phenomena will no longer exist; instead, the mandala of the buddhas will appear before the practitioner. The process of an ordinary person attaining buddhahood is in fact the process of transforming consciousness into wisdom.

Through practicing the generation stage, pure phenomena—that all is the mandala of the Buddhas—will manifest; this is also the state of the eighth-ground Bodhisattva after emerging from meditation.

*Footnote 

For those who have received the empowerment of this Tantric practise, you are reminded not to intentionally or unintentionally disclose the mantra to the public or anyone who may not have the empowerment or permission to practise, and disclosing the mantra intentionally or unintentionally is a form of breaking your Tantric Samaya vows to the lineage masters and Dharma protectors.

Please consult your Guru or a qualified lineage master for Vajrayana practise! Should a devotee even want to start studying and contemplating the Vajrayana practise, then it is truly necessary to first have completed the preliminaries and to be certain that Bodhicitta has arisen and developed in one’s mind. 

Vajrayana features countless skillful and powerful methods that, if practised in the proper way, can make the process of accumulation and purification incredibly swift and direct. It is absolutely necessary to have pure motivation and to know that Vajrayana practise is not carried out to increase one’s own ego, power, or self-interest.  

Donations for our Buddhist research and development

Do you earnestly cherish our devoted work? Assuming this is the case, we are delighted that you are finding our blog useful and valuable. Would you consider making a donation for our Buddhist research and development?

We need your help to secure the future of scholarly interaction with Buddhism. Since our very first publication of Dharma works and activities in 2008, we have been effortlessly providing free distribution of Dharma posts and articles throughout the previous 14 years. We have exceptionally constrained support and do not receive subsidies or funding from people in general.

 

Please help us develop our Dharma activities that will not only benefit you but all Dharma readers on the planet. Please consider showing your support. Your generosity will certainly help us enhance our work and accomplish more for a better and brighter future.

 

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 arisen

May 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 wrongdoings

May we liberate migratory from the ocean of existence.

With its stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness, and death.

 

*Note

I do not own or infringe any copyright on the picture(s).

Picture(s) courtesy and credit to the rightful distributors and/or studios

The picture(s) are intended for editorial use only.

The Generation Stage - Yidam Practice (1/5)

The generation stage (utpatti-krama) 

In the generation stage, one dissolves one's reality into emptiness and meditates on the deity-mandala, resulting in identification with this divine reality. 

What is the generation stage in Vajrayana Buddhism?

The generation stage or creation phase (Tibetan : bskyed rim) (Sanskrit : utpatti-krama), also known as "the phase of imagination" and "the yoga of fabrications," the first phase of tantric deity yoga in the Unsurpassed Yoga Tantra of the later schools of Tibetan Buddhism. It also equates to the Mahayoga of the Nyingma school. 

(Tibetan : bskyed rim) (Sanskrit : utpatti-krama) is the ‘generation’ or ‘development phase’ of practice—otherwise known as visualisation practice—the goal of which is to purify our perception into the purity of our inherent nature.

The first phase of meditational practice (Sadhana) is associated with the anuttara-yoga-tantras in general and especially with the so-called ‘Father Tantras’ such as the Guhyasamaja Tantra. The generation phase involves the use of creative imagination or visualisation as a means of personal transformation through which the practitioners either visualise a divine being before them (front generation) or as themselves (self-generation) in order to alter their perception and experience of the appearance aspect of reality.  

All Vajrayana practices can be subsumed under the categories of the generation stage and the completion stage.

The practice of the generation stage is to purify phenomena primarily through visualization of the buddhas, bodhisattvas, and their mandalas. The practice of the completion stage is to realise emptiness with practices based on the channels, wind energies, and essences of the subtle body.

To practice the union of the generation and the completion stages is to visualize the yidam (the meditational deity) as an illusion, as a dream. 

Normally, the proper sequence of practice is to practice the generation stage first, then the completion stage, but there is no need to follow this sequence in the practice of the union of the two stages. From the standpoint of phenomena, it is the generation stage; the dream-like, illusory emptiness represents the completion stage. 

Why this teaching is necessary

In this Age of Dharma Decline, practitioners always tend to have myriad problems. For example, they pay less attention to the foundational elements of achieving accomplishment in Vajrayana practice, such as visualisation, recitation, cultivation of the right view, mindfulness, etc., but instead busy themselves with just the formalities of practice, such as the mandalas, rituals, offerings, vajra dance, and so on. 

In so doing, the result from practice cannot manifest, nor can the four activities (pacifying, enriching, magnetizing, and subjugating) be accomplished. 

All yidam practices, whether the deity is peaceful or wrathful, involve the generation stage. One cannot do deity practice without knowing how to practice the generation stage. 

To properly practice the generation stage in a retreat, one should first complete all the preliminaries and also pay particular attention to the process—there are many complicated requirements regarding the time, place, and format of the retreat, the time and format of ending the retreat, and so on. 

We don’t need to know the details for the time being, as many people have not yet undertaken the preliminary practice; even if some people have completed the preliminaries once, the quality of the practice is still less than satisfactory. However, the method of visualisation is very important. 

If one is unable to visualize clearly, the entire result of practice will be adversely affected. The preliminary practices, such as the ones for taking refuge, Vajrasattva, and Guru Yoga, also entail the practice of the generation stage. Therefore, it is necessary to briefly explain this practice.

Of course, this is just a brief introduction to the general structure of the generation stage or deity practice, which applies to all practices and serves as the steps and standard that all should follow. To understand the generation stage in more detail, it is best to refer to the text and sadhana of the individual practice. 

*Footnote

For those who have received the empowerment of this Tantric practise, you are reminded not to intentionally or unintentionally disclose the mantra to the public or anyone who may not have the empowerment or permission to practise, and disclosing the mantra intentionally or unintentionally is a form of breaking your Tantric Samaya vows to the lineage masters and Dharma protectors.

Please consult your Guru or a qualified lineage master for Vajrayana practise! Should a devotee even want to start studying and contemplating the Vajrayana practise, then it is truly necessary to first have completed the preliminaries and to be certain that Bodhicitta has arisen and developed in one’s mind. 

Vajrayana features countless skillful and powerful methods that, if practised in the proper way, can make the process of accumulation and purification incredibly swift and direct. It is absolutely necessary to have pure motivation and to know that Vajrayana practise is not carried out to increase one’s own ego, power, or self-interest.  

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Aspiration For Bodhichitta

For those in whom the precious Bodhichitta has not arisen

May 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 wrongdoings

May we liberate migratory from the ocean of existence.

With its stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness, and death.

 

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