The Vajrayana Practice is Entered through an Empowerment – Kalu Rinpoche
Kalu Rinpoche–Secret Buddhism/Vajrayana Practices
The master is its depository, and the disciple will gain it by the practice of the yidams and recitation of their mantras. In order for this force and its vector-yidam-to be transmitted from the master to the disciple, a particular ceremony is necessary, the empowerment. The Tibetan tradition offers a great number of yidams, and the empowerments are numerous and varies. This varieties does not alter the essential unity of grace. It is a little like pure water that am be given and drunk in various containers.
To be efficient, the empowerment requires the realization of the master who confers it, as well as confidence and intelligence of the disciple who receives it. These empowerments take the form of various rituals of greater or lesser complexity. During the empowerments of the great tantric deities, the most common and elaborate versions of the empowerment are characterized by making a mandala of colored sands. A version of medium complexity will use a mandala painted on cloth. A simpler version will use a mandala made of small heaps of rice. Finally, in an empowerment reduced to its essential version, the body of the master who gives the empowerment or a simple mental representation is sufficient to symbolize the mandala.
The four stages of an empowerment
The notion of empowerment implies the idea of conceding that there is a power, an authority. In the political domain, heads of State, ministers, or other governing persons occupy positions of responsibility that confer certain authority on them. To be able to hold power, it is necessary, first of all, for these people to have been invested with that power. According to their respective cultures, they have been appointed, elected, or enthroned. For example, if it concerns a coronation, the future king will be placed on a throne in the presence of dignitaries. The different emblems of royalty will be given to him and, from then on, he will be the real chief of his kingdom. Only after this investiture will the king have the authority that allows him to direct, give orders, and be obeyed by all. In the same way, an empowerment includes four subsections called the four empowerments: vase empowerment, secret empowerment, wisdom-knowledge empowerment and fourth empowerment or empowerment of the precious word conferring on those who receive it a power in the practice of meditation. Simplified forms of empowerments are limited to transmission of the body, speech, or mind of the deity, or only to the vase empowerment. However, empowerment, in the full sense of the term, implies the four subsections just mentioned. It is only in those circumstances that the samayas play a complete role and must be scrupulously respected for the transmission of grace to open the door of accomplishments.
Preparatory phases
The lama charged with giving an empowerment must, first of all, conform to the reference tantra stated by the Buddha by preparing the mandala that will serve as support. This mandala can be a sand mandala, a painted mandala, or a mandala composed of small heaps of rice symbolically placed on a base. Officiating alone, the lama executes a part of the ritual in three preparatory phases.
- The dakye, where the lama visualizes himself or herself in the form of the deity
- The dunkye, where the lama visualizes the deities in space.
- The bumkye, where the lama consecrates the vase of empowerment, visualizing it as a celestial palace where the deities of the empowerment reside.
- Finally, a fourth preparatory phase is added. The lama confers the empowerment on himself or herself (dajuk).
Only after this are the disciples admitted in the temple to receive the empowerment.
Vase empowerment
The disciple first receives the vase empowerment, conferred on the body. This introduces the disciple to the pure nature of the different constituents of his or her psycho-physical personality. There are the five aggregates, the five elements, or the factors of perception. This empowerment is given with the help of ritual objects, symbolizing the five masculine Buddhas-such as the crown, vajra, bell, and so on. By this process, faults and veils related to the body are dissipated and the constituents of the personality become the corresponding pure aspects: the five masculine Buddhas, five feminine Buddhas, eight great feminine and masculine Bodhisattvas, and so on. This empowerment gives the power to meditate with our own body in the form of the deity’s body, and will ultimately lead us to achieve the body of emanation (nirmanakaya).
Because of this relation, the vase empowerment bestows the power to meditate on the impure aspects of the individual and the universe in their pure form, corresponding to deities, and to realize them as such.
The five aggregates-forms, sensations, perceptions, volitions, and consciousnesses-are only the reflection, within the ordinary person, of the five masculine Buddhas in the domain of Awakening.
The five aggregates-forms, sensations, perceptions, volitions, and consciousnesses-are only the reflection, within the ordinary person, of the five masculine Buddhas in the domain of Awakening. The vase empowerment introduces us to the divine essence of the five aggregates and confers on us the power to realize this essence on the basis of an equivalence between each aggregate and each Buddha.
- forms – Vairocana
- sensations – Ratnasambhava
- perceptions – Amitabha
- volitions – Amoghasiddhi
- consciousnesses – Akshobya
In the same way, an equivalence is established between the five elements and their essence, the five feminine Buddhas, to which the empowerment serves as introduction.
- earth – Buddhalocana
- water – Mamaki
- fire – Pandaravasini
- air – Samayatara
- space – Vajradhatvesvari
The eight consciousnesses-visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, and mental consciousnesses to which are added disturbed consciousness and the potential of consciousness (Sanskrit, alayavijnana)-are perceived as the eight great masculine Bodhisattvas, and the objects of consciousnesses as the eight great feminine Bodhisattvas.
Third, the eight consciousnesses-visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, and mental consciousnesses to which are added disturbed consciousness and the potential of consciousness (Sanskrit, alayavijnana)-are perceived as the eight great masculine Bodhisattvas, and the objects of consciousnesses as the eight great feminine Bodhisattvas. In this way, all psycho-physical constituents of the person are consecrated as deities. The disciple receives therefore the power to meditate visualizing himself or herself in the form of the body of the deity’s empowerment.
This process is the vase empowerment, also called, body empowerment of the deity. It is related to subtle channels (nadis) allowing the disciple to ultimately actualize the body of emanation.
Secret empowerment
The second empowerment, secret empowerment, conferred on speech, is transmitted by consecrated alcohol that becomes ambrosia (Tibetan, dutsi), contained in a skullcap. The disciple drinks a few drops. This empowerment purifies faults and veils related to speech, bestows the power to recite the deity’s mantra, and allows one to ultimately achieve the body of perfect experience (sambhogakaya).
In the subtle channels of the body circulates a subtle energy (prana) that is linked with speech and whose totally pure expression corresponds to the body of perfect experience (sambhogakaya). To achieve this purity, the secret empowerment is conferred and is also called speech empowerment of the deity. Thanks to this empowerment, all impure subtle winds are transformed into pure winds.
To undertake this purification, exercises on winds and recitation of mantras are used. By this secret empowerment, the disciple receives the power to consider all sounds as the deity’s mantra. It is necessary to know that the body is innervated by a system of 72,000 nadis. The three main ones are the central channel and the two lateral channels, which flank the central channel on the right and left sides. The final part of each of these channels presents a configuration associated with the thirty consonants and sixteen vowels of the Sanskrit alphabet and forms the basis for speech to function.
When the secret empowerment is conferred, by reason of the relationship between subtle winds, speech, and sambhogakaya, the ability of actualizing the vajra speech of sambhogakaya is given.
Wisdom-knowledge empowerment
The third empowerment, wisdom-knowledge empowerment, conferred on the disciple’s mind, is transmitted by a wisdom-knowledge (Tibetan, rikma) that is to say, a young woman, painted, for the sake of the ritual on a small card. This empowerment purifies faults and veils related to mind and bestows the power to meditate on the union of bliss and emptiness, and to ultimately achieve the absolute body (dharmakaya).
This third empowerment is related to the tigles (Sanskrit, bindu) and confers the power of implementing meditation techniques using the tigles.
For an empowerment to have real effect, it is necessary, of course, that certain external conditions be met. It is also necessary that the lama who gives it has received authentic transmission and executes the ceremony with accuracy, without adding or removing anything. Finally, it is necessary that disciples who receive it have full confidence in the lama, some understanding of the process, and conviction in its efficiency.
Empowerment of the precious word The fourth empowerment, empowerment of the precious word, does not use ritual objects but consists of an oral introduction to the mode of being of the mind and all phenomena. Its impact is located at the level of simultaneousness-simultaneous purification of faults and veils of body, speech, and mind. It also permit simultaneous meditation of one’s body as the deity’s body, one’s speech as the deity’s mantra, and one’s mind as the state of absorption. Ultimately, it leads to the realization of the body of essence itself (svabhavakaya), the union of the three other bodies of Awakening.
The sutra approach of Mahayana and the tantra approach of Vajrayana lead to the same goal, but with different time scales. It is said that the practitioner must practice three immeasurable kalpas before reaching Awakening through the sutra path. It is said that a maximum of sixteen lifetimes is necessary for obtaining the same result through the tantra path. As for a minimum, it varies according to texts. Some say six months, others six or twelve years, but in any case Awakening is realized in the framework of this lifetime.
– Kalu Rinpoche–Secret Buddhism/Vajrayana Practices
Consequently, once the vase empowerment, the secret empowerment, and wisdom-knowledge empowerment are received, it is possible to practice the Six Dharmas of Naropa. The Six Dharmas are tummo, illusory body, dream, clear light, transfer of consciousness, and bardo, during which one meditates on channels, winds, and tigles. In some cases, this presents an opportunity to practice, within the framework of the Vajrayana, techniques of retention of the tigles in sexual union.
To summarize, we have now seen the three empowerments that gather the body, speech, and mind of the lama and yidam. We have received the power to effectively meditate on the three vajras. – nadis as vajra-body – prana as vajra-speech – tigles as vajra-mind. Empowerment of the precious word or oral empowerment The fourth empowerment is the empowerment of the precious word. It relies on the principle that nadis, prana, and tigles and the totality of inner and outer phenomena proceed only from the mind. By the fourth empowerment, one is introduced to this nature of the mind, and one receives the power to practice and achieve mahamudra.
