The Practice of Vajrasattva Yab Yum

Lama Lena: Good morning. Yesterday for the group which is doing ngöndro, I taught Vajrasattva in the context of ngöndro. But that’s not the only way it’s used. So I wanted to teach it once to you all, outside of the context of ngöndro.

Sometimes you get into a situation that feels like it might have been traumatic and you want to clean up that PTSD before it takes root. Use this. For example, the cops stop you for a burned out tail light that you hadn’t noticed. You survive. They don’t shoot you – you got lucky. But you’re left a little bit shaken afterwards. I’m talking mostly to the Americans who… our police are unpredictable. And you’re a little shaken afterwards and you don’t want it to set up a PTSD for you. So run this for a bit.

Or you had a day and you’re not sure you were impeccable during your actions that day. Run this in the evenings. Many of us run it every evening. If you are an evening showerer, because you work hard and then you want to get the day off here when you get home, you can run it in the shower.

So I’m going to teach it to you with the full sadhana but you don’t have to do the full sudden every time. I’ll show you how you can shorten it when you’re just going to run a bit in the shower or while pulled over beside the road after a traumatic experience or any other time you feel the need for a bit of a cleansing on you. It’s one of the more useful of the Tibetan practices in this way.

[Lineage Prayer]

You will find comments on YouTube and I’m not sure where on Facebook, but it should be up there

Nyondo: I’ve posted the link.

Ceremonial Objects

Lama Lena: A sadhana, typed out (Nyondo was kind enough to help me with that last night, since I am an infernally slow typist). And for this, you’re going to want your dorje and bell. If you don’t have a dorje and bell, that’s okay. But if you do have one, go get them. Dorje on the right, bell on the left. And damaru.

Damarus are generally kept nicely wrapped up, because they’re sensitive to humidity. If you don’t have a dorje and bell and you want one, one can often find them on eBay. For a variety of prices – this is difficult only that you don’t get to hear the tone. You’ll do better going (when you can) to a Tibetan store or a flea market with Tibetan stalls and purchasing there because then you can hear the tone of the bell [rings bell], which is important. There’s a variety. Some are more thunkers. They’re not so good. A lot of it depends on the bell metal. They should sing. [Rings bell] Hear it sing?

If you go to India at some point, you can get them much more cost effectively there. The ones you get here have been imported from India and Nepal. If you will be practicing Tantra it is necessary that you acquire a dorje and a bell and a damaru. If you will be practicing Chod, it is necessary that you acquire a different, larger kind of damaru and a [combling] This is pretty much your minimums of ceremonial objects, that it’s hard to sort of substitute something around the house for.

And Vajrasattva is a tantra. It works with symbols. It does not work with your intellect. It goes right past your intellect in symbolic form down into the subconscious which governs dream-time, down into those layers below words and makes changes there, so the visualization is important. However, you will not have it perfect. Get used to it. Perfection happens with enlightenment. This is why this is all called “practice”. Because it’s not perfect yet and your visualization (if it’s the best one you can do) it’ll work because it’s working on your subconscious and you know what you’re doing.

Vajrasattva is the essence of the mind of all Buddhas, not separate from Dorje Padmo dem-chog all the Herukas, Phurba – not separate in essence. It is the symbol of this. It is the secret treasure of 10 million stainless dakinis. It is the method by which one steps into the sky as a sky dancer. It is the adamantine and unshakable primordial purity – kadak – your own innate unfuckableness, which is always there.

When your glasses are dirty and it is hard to peer through them, there’s nothing wrong with your eyesight. Your eyes are fine. It’s just smutch on your glasses – clean them off. And in fact, that’s what Vajrsattva does, get the smuch off. It is a smutch removal. Scrubbing bubbles. All of these are analogies.

Taking Refuge & Generating Bodhicitta

Vajrasattva was the teacher of Garab Dorje, who is considered the founder of Dzogchen in the Nyingma lineage and is also considered a lineage holder in the Bon lineage. His teachings came directly from here. So it’s a very powerful practice. Now, in the beginning of all practices (not just this one, but any practice you do) there is a context in which you do them. You do them in the context of refuge in bodhicitta. So you begin by taking refuge.

Refuge Prayer:
Sanjay, cho dang gedung la kyapsutsiwo
Lama, Yidam, Khandro la kyapsutsiwo
Tsa, Lung, Tigle la kyapsutsiwo
Chuku, Lonku, Truku la kyapsutsiwo
Rang sem tong-sel ngowo la kyapsutsiwo

Having taken refuge, you generate bodhicitta by noticing the inherent interconnectedness of all life. You – the personality you have in this moment – it’s not the same “you” of 25 years ago when you were a child or a teenager. You’ve changed. How? Why? Because you’ve had experiences and in general all of those experiences have been interactive. Conversations with people, falling in love, falling out of love, having fights, reading books. Your ideas did not happen in a void. They are not yours individually. You got them from others in conversation, in reading. Yes, you thought about it all and made it your own but what you thought about these things you heard and read and felt in interactions and saw (movies, TV shows, commercials) all of that has gone to make up who you are.

This interconnectedness of all life, in our ignorance, we see it as all sorts of “this’s and that’s” but it really isn’t. This interconnectedness itself is the innate vitality of the universe, Sambhogakaya nature of mind, the aliveness, the clear light of the Dharmakaya by which the seer sees, the vitality by a which the awareness is able to be aware of “this’s and that’s”. This is the interconnection and its nature is great-heartedness. Open-heartedness, which is kind of like love, but bigger. Love gets sticky. “Do they love me or not? Do they love me back? I love my baby. Well, are they coming out well? Am I proud of them?” That stickiness, take that out. Just the sheer great-hearted, open-hearted love.

You need to arouse the feeling. Think kittens, a little kitten here at your heart, purring, looking up at you, touching your face with its little paw and purring and looking at you with absolute trust. That heart-melting feeling, let it expand out to the entire universe. Arise bodhicitta in your heart. Do this however slowly or quickly, with or without recitations, before any practice.

If you’re just going to get in the shower and do Vajrasattva to clean off some smutch of the day, as you’re getting undressed, think a little bit about refuge in the infinite, vast, open, unfathomable, vital and aware dance of no thing, that is always there underlying all your confusions. The innate luminous clarity of your own mind. The essence of the teacher, the archetype, and the dakini. The essence of the energy channels, that qi [lung] that runs within them and the life force essence of thigle. Notice it, relax into it and let it hold you. Then, notice the vitality of love, the interconnectedness of all beings, because we’re all in this together. Then go on to the practice you’re going to do.

The Visualization

In Vajrasattva, in most cases – there’s a lot of different lineages, there’s a lot of different sadhanas and a lot of different ways of doing it. To avoid confusion I’m just going to teach you one way today. It is not the only way. If you have a different way that you already do it, that’s fine. Do it that way if you like it. If you like this better, switch. They all do the same thing. They all have certain components.

Visualize yourself as you. Just ordinary you, just as y’are, but include your channel body: the Uma (the central channel), the two side channels that go in your nostrils and down and join the central channel at the bottom, all the chakras and all the little bitty channels that go through your body and actually extend outside your body about an arm’s breadth. All of these channels, within and without, include that in your visualization.

So you’re sitting there as you, with your channels and above your head – I see a mistake already in the sadhana. If you’re looking at your sadhana, where it says in there “at your heart”, no, it’s above your head here. Not at the heart of oneself but above your crown chakra. So let me actually… I’m going to grab a pen and fix it on my hardcopy.

Nyondo: And we’ll post an update.

Lama Lena: Yes. Changing the word “heart” to “crown”. It’s about a hand span above your head. It’s not touching your head. It’s a rainbow-colored variegated lotus – all the colors of the rainbow, all the colors you’ve ever seen. But it also goes into the infrared and the ultraviolet. A thousand-petaled lotus floats above your head. On it lies the disk of the moon, like a cushion.

Above the disk of the whole moon there hovers a HUNG seed syllable and that HUNG transforms into Vajrasattva in union with his consort, Nyima Karmo. That means “white sun”, the bright white of the sun. For, he is the color of moonlight white and she is the color of sunlight white. In some thangkas there’s a slight, almost pinkish-golden cast to her and a slight blue cast to his white, but they’re both white, like cool white and warm white.

So he is in union, embracing his consort. They’re in sexual union. His penis is in her vagina. Full sexual union. They’re both made of light. They’re not made of flesh. They don’t sweat. Pure light, like in a mirror. You can’t reach into a mirror and pick up a coffee cup in the mirror then drink it. You have to go find what’s reflected. Like in a mirror, just made of light, without substance, they are.

Her name means “unshakable white sun”. His name means “unshakable, uncorruptibleness”. They are adorned with the Sambhogakaya ornaments. This means two necklaces, long and short, which was traditional for kings in the days when these images first arose to be used in this way. It is a significator of great power just as a king has power in a country. They wear a crown. They are draped in multicolor rainbow-colored silks. They have a pictorial. They have all the jewels that signify beauty, wealth and power. Because they are sambhogakaya and all sambhogakaya is decorated in this way. Sometimes the jewels are made of bone but they’re still decorated with the symbols and these symbols refer to the richness, the wealth of jewels and jewelry, the richness of the vitality, the infinitude of it. The power… the power beyond conflict. Not the power to win or lose – beyond winning and losing.

So this is the symbol of the Sambhogakaya. Tantra generally points at Sambhogakaya. Westerners tend to miss the Sambhogakaya because they didn’t grow up with everything pointing there. So, they get Dharmakaya (infinite, vast, open, empty). They get Nirmanakaya (stuff). But what else is there besides openness and stuff? If you are caught in that binary pattern, you’re stuck. The actual pattern is trinary. In the middle, between infinite emptiness and infinite manifestations of form, what connects them? Awareness, aliveness, vitality, love. All of these words can be used to point to the middle, the Sambhogakaya.

Without awake, lucid awareness, you couldn’t see the stuff – nobody could perceive stuff, stuff couldn’t even arise! This open awareness is innate to the infinite vast emptiness. It is what makes Dharmakaya nature of mind not a big old black void, but shimmering with clear light. Sambhogakaya is the word which points at this innate, awareness of vitality. Don’t miss it or you’ll be stuck in a dichotomy. You don’t want to do that. You’ve been stuck there for eons.

Vajrasattva has two hands. In his right hand he holds a vajra at the heart level. In his left hand, around his consort, embracing her… in his left hand, he holds the bell lower down like this. His arms are around her.

Her arms are around him. In her right hand, she holds a flensing knife, a drigu. I had a pen… Can you all see this? That’s what it looks like. It’s for skinning something, like if you’re skinning a beast you’re going to eat. It’s for getting the superfluous crap off. Skinning it down to its essence – she’s got this in her right hand which is around him. In her left hand, she holds a kapala. That, I have to show you [gets up to search for a kapala]. I just don’t happen to have a drigu.

This is a kapala. It is full of the dutsi which is the life force essence of the universe, symbolically. All that is, all that is not. Undifferentiated, unjudged. I had a drigu at one point. I haven’t seen it lately. Perhaps I lent it to someone. You’ll have to deal with my little Mickey Mouse drawing for that.

At their crown chakra, is the seed syllable OM which is the symbol of the form of all Buddhas. At their throat chakra is the seed syllable AH which is the symbol of the speech, the intent of all Buddhas to be Buddhas. And since all Buddhas arise from all sentient beings, that is the intent felt by sentient beings towards freedom. Same intent towards enlightenment – the yearn – as Buddhas. It is the intent to be as they are. And in fact, those two things are not separate. Bodhichitta and guru yoga come together here.

Their hearts are pressed together in love, in union and so it’s almost like there’s one big heart chakra including both. From the HUNG, go out beams of light. They don’t go in one of the five ordinary dimensions, or the 10 ordinary directions. Elsewhere. They go to the natural abode beyond time and space. They enter another dimension and go into that natural abode beyond time and space. They invoke all the enlightened beings of the four times, all the Buddha’s that ever will have been (including your own enlightened nature) and they invite it forth, these lights that come from the HUNG in the Vajrasattva. They invite.

The 5 Dhyani Buddhas & Consorts

And all these Buddhas come forth from their natural abode and they flow in the form of light into the image on your crown chakra.

OM BENZA SAMA DZA

And all Buddha’s of the four times and the Vajrasattva yab yum on your crown chakra become non-dual.

DZA HUNG BAM HO

Again, lights go out from the HUNG at the heart, invoking the five wisdom Buddhas and their consorts. These are the five Dhyani Buddhas of the five directions. The five wisdoms which are the transformation of the five poisons, for example, anger and fear. When anger and fear are neither acted upon, entertained, nor suppressed, but released into their own true nature, they transform into the wisdom of equanimity symbolized often by Vajrasattva [Vajrasattva-Akshobhya] – white in color, eastern direction. And the Dhyani Buddhas are also together with their consorts. 

In the north, green in color. All your comparativeness, judgmentalism, “I’m better than, I’m less than, am I as good as…” all your competitiveness, all your jealousy and “trado” and schadenfreude – all of this – when it is released into its own true nature, being neither acted on, entertained, nor suppressed, it becomes the wisdom of Amoghasiddhi, the All-Accomplishing wisdom, which slips smoothly into “done” without the need of doing.

In the west your lust, your passion, your loneliness, your urge to merge, your seeking for a soulmate, your despair at not finding one, your lust, your need to get laid, the itch in your cunt. All of this. Where neither acted on nor suppressed, but released into its own true nature, naturally transforms into bodhichitta. Amitabha, Lord of Light.

And in the southern direction Ratnasambhava, gold in color, wealth, richness of texture, all the sensory pleasures, the “not enough” that you live with. Everybody’s got a “not enough”. It might be chocolate, it might be potato chips. It might be surface area, which is mine. It’s never enough surface area to put down all the stuff I’m using at a given moment. I don’t care how big a table or desk you give me I fill it. And it’s all stuff I’m working with!

It might be clothes. It might be love and the need to be loved or the need to be respected or the need to fear or the need to be a winner. Whatever you can never fill completely, you can never say enough, like “enough money, I have enough money”. Do you? Can you feel enough in regard to money? Some of you can’t. That’s the whole of the southern direction. And when neither fretted about nor acted upon, nor suppressed or denied, but released into its own true nature, it transforms itself into Ratnasambhava, the totally satisfying richness of the texture of the bliss of the Sambhogakaya. The union of Samsara and Nirvana.

So it is these symbols… oh and central direction! You know, especially now with COVID, the “I don’t want to” days? You don’t want to do the laundry. “I don’t want to do the dishes. I just want to go back to bed and pull the covers over my head. Oh shit, I’m depressed again.” You know those? That sludgy depression, sludge, sloth, can’t be bothered, too much effort. “I’ll never succeed” goes with there. Yeah, that one. When accepted, not shoved away, not attempted to escape from because it’s bad, not judged, not labeled, but allowed naturally to transform, it becomes the open, spacious, vast, infinite, Kuntuzangpo, Primordial Buddha.

So these guys with their consorts together, you are invoking from the five directions (up and down too). But first you’re going to make them some offerings to encourage them to come and enter Vajrasattva, so that the five poisons within you (yeah, you get in trouble with all five of these) can be transformed into their true nature of the five wisdoms.

Making offerings

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So first, the mantra to see the offerings in their pure nature, as bliss and wisdom combined:

OM SOBAWA SHUDO SARWA DHARMA SOBAWA SHUDO HUNG.

Then, with your dorje in your right hand, held between your thumb and your palm and your bell in the left hand, held the same way, you are going to make mudras of offering while singing. First you snap your fingers – I can’t with arthritis but imagine: snap fingers.

OM BENDZA SATO AHGAM: These are cups of water to drink.

PARTITSA HUNG SOHA.

OM BENDZA SATO PHADAM: Pouring the water to wash

PARTITSA HUNG SOHA.

OM BENDZA SATO PUPAY: Blooming lotuses. See, this motion?

PARTITSA HUNG SOHA.

OM BENDZA SATO DUPAY PARTITSA HUNG SOHA.

DUPAY used to be like this [demonstrates with middle finger] but then Tibetans met Westerners so they changed it to this [demonstrates with index finger]. You can do it either way.

AHGAM used to be like this, a cup with something in it. But that’s too close to the okay sign now which has been taken on by white supremacists. So we just push this on towards the middle finger a little bit. See how that is? That’s how we do it now. This used to be how we did it. We’ve made modifications as the culture changes, so as not to put in symbols we don’t want to.

OM BENDZA SATO ALOKAY: See the wick in the middle of a butter lamp?

PARTITSA HUNG SOHA

OM BENDZA SATO GANDAY: I am massaging you with perfumed oils. I am offering massage of perfumed oils.

PARTITSA HUNG SOHA

OM BENDZA SATO NYEWDAY: Look. Can you see my hands? The middle finger is lying on top of the other two which are under it. I’m offering food that’s a torma.

PARTITSA HUNG SOHA

OM BENDZA SATO SHEPTA: Now if your hands are big enough, you hold the dorje and the damaru [ringing bell and playing damaru]

PARTITSA HUNG SOHA

…which is music, you offer drum and bell as music.

And you make the request in your heart: “Those who have gone beyond, please grant us the actual initiation.” And you say:

OM SARVA TATHAGATA ABISHEKATA SAMAYA SHRI YE HUM

The five Dhayani Buddha’s and their consorts flow into Vajrasattva yab yum in the form of amrita they are, filling them completely. Some of it bubbles over on the top and Akshobhya Buddha (eastern direction) – sometimes it’s Vajrasattva, sometimes it’s Akshobhya – adorns the crown. It’s the front jewel, a diamond.

“Completely pure in form, resplendent with symbols, to you Vajrasattva and Vajra Nyima Karmo, I prostrate. Please release I and all living beings from our confusions and sufferings.”

OM AH HUNG

“I admit my faults and I will stop doing them to the very best of my ability. Please purify me and all others completely.” You’re making the request – use your own words here.

Remember, they’ve got the OM AH HUNGs in their brow chakras, in their brow, throat and heart chakras. In the heart chakra, in Vajrasattva, the HUNG sits on a moon disk on a thousand-peddled rainbow lotus and surrounding the HUNG is the 100-syllable mantra.

The 100-Syllable Mantra

I will now give you the lung for this. To do so, repeat after me.

OM BENZA SATO SAMAYA
MANU PALAYA
BENZO SATO TENOPA
TISHTA DRICHO ME BHAVA
SUTO KHAYO ME BHAVA
SUPO KHYAO ME BHAVA
ANU RAKTO ME BHAVA
SARVA SIDDHI ME PRAYACHA
SARVA KARMA SU TSA ME
TSI TAM SHRE YANG KURU HUNG
HA HA HA HA HO
BHAGAVAN SARVA TATAGATA
BENZA MA ME MUNTSA
BENZI BHAVA MAHA SAMAYA
SATO AH

[repeats again quickly]

You can do it fast, too. This is the mantra, which goes around in the heart of Vajrasattva. You recite this mantra (yes, you need to memorize it) as many times as you wish.

One round, twenty-one, whatever you’re going to do in that session. When you get to the last mantra, ring the bell to invoke the empty nature of all phenomena, while reciting it the last time [repeats mantra again while ringing bell].

While you are reciting the mantra and it’s going around in the heart of Vajrasattva yab and yum, it is creating dutsi, amrita, mythical substance of purification, mythical, primordially pure substance, liquid light. And this amrita that is being created here has a very interesting and particular texture. Milk – whole milk, high cream milk from a Jersey cow. It’s almost a little unctuous, rich, creamy.

It will act upon your energy channels, your tsa, like cream rinse, like pure white hair conditioner. If you’ve ever ridden on a motorcycle without a helmet with long hair for a time, you know what that will do to your hair. And the only way to get that out of your hair, that bilbla, that entanglement that has happened, is to dunk your head in cream rinse and slowly work your fingers and a comb through it. Your tsa is in that condition on account of life is like riding a motorcycle without a helmet. And your tsa, your filaments, your energy channels are like long hair. These are analogies. But you want them to relax and smooth out and release all the quirks, neuroses, hang ups, glitches, demons, ick that’s caught them.

So, this creates it in the heart and it descends down. It is potentiated in the sex chakra and it descends from right there, where their penis and clitoris are in union, right from that point, it flows out of them and it flows down and enters your crown chakra. And it flows through your energy channels and fills your body all to the extent of your energy channels as if they are all being filled with pure clear, white, milky light.

Now, an important point here: the color of this amrita… You know the color of fluorescent lights? Don’t use that color! Okay? It’s too sharp. Soft, white, milky, creamy, warm, white light. Okay? It’s got to be really soft, not sharp or pokey anywhere or you going to do yourself a mischief and bruise a tsa and bruising a tsa hurts like fuck. Crying jags and things, you know?

So gently, it flows down and gently it untangles your tsa and gently it drives out all your dig-drip – What I said there – the neuroses, the hang-ups, the glitches, the weird belief systems, the ick – those in Tibetan are called dig-drip. It drives them out in the form of spiders, scorpions, and centipedes, which are no longer nesting in the tangles of your tsa. They are driven out and they come out of your eliminatory orifices – your anus, your urethra and the pores of your skin. These are the orifices in which you naturally eliminate waste material, so that’s where they come out. And they fall down to the center of the earth.

And there in the center of the earth is Yamantaka, Slayer of Death, with a dark blue color and the head of a bull – big, buff, muscle-bound, twenty feet tall. And he’s got a big mouth on the head of the horned, mad bull and his mouth is open, looking up, with an expression of absolute delight on his face. Like you managed to stick your mouth under a chocolate fountain. And all your scorpions and spiders and centipedes are falling in and he eats them all up with great pleasure, because those are his natural food and so they are utterly all gone.

This is your visualization while reciting the mantra.

Slowly as the dig-drip is gone, my body fills with dutsi until I am nothing but a hollow crystal form of light filled completely to the top with the luminous dutsi, completely purified, absolutely pure. Then Vajrasattva and Vajra Nyima Karmo smile at me with love, looking ever so pleased with my actions. They say, “child of my heart, all your digpa and breakage of samaya is forgiven. All your negativities and obstructions are washed away and completely purified.” In joy, they both sink into me and become one with me.

You can do this in one of two ways. You can either have Dorje Nyima Karmo absorb into Vajrasttva and become Vajrasattva holding in Nyima Karmo or you can have Vajrasattva absorbed into Nyima Karmo and become Nyima Karmo holding Vajrasattva, or you can do it the way I like to do it (being all non-binary and all): they both absorb into me and I’m both of them! I don’t have to be only one being one time. I can be everything, everywhere knowing this. Why not be both? I find it more fun. So what I wrote it in here is how I did it. But if you can’t manage that, you can do it singular.

We are in the total bliss of sunyata in full samadhi, completely beyond the dualistic view which discriminates between subject and object, this and that – completely beyond dualism. This is the highest possible enjoyment. This is the bliss of the vitality of the sambhogakaya, non-dual with dharmakaya and nirmanakaya. This is the clear light nature of your own mind.

Sit in the bliss beyond for a time and then dedicate the merits.

Gewa di yi nyur du dak… (Sorry, I left a piece out).
Dorje sempa drub gyur ne
drowa chik kyang malupa
de yi sa la gopar shok

What you are saying is “this virtue created, as Vajrasattva’s done in the past, all beings without exception, may I do for them as this. May I offer it out.”

This is your sadhana should you wish to do it as a sadhana. Should you not have time for this on a busy day, just stick the visualization above your head and say the mantra. Feel it going down, feel them falling out, feel yourself being cleaned out. I like to do it in the shower. Mutter the mantra – it doesn’t take that long to memorize it. Mutter the mantra while feeling the water as a symbol of the dutsi cleaning your outer and inner. All gone. Nice and clean on all levels. Because inevitably you’re going to create some kind of digpa during the day. Little stuff, but yeah it happens. So you might as well wash it off in the evening before you go to bed.

Questions

Are there questions?

Nyondo: There’s a few. How important is it to pronounce the Tibetan words correctly? It’s something I struggle with.

Lama Lena: Do the best you can, that will work. Be… have faith that how you are pronouncing them is good enough. That’s actually more important. I gave you the lung for the mantra in Tibetan. If you prefer to say it in Sanskrit, you may do so. And some of you already know it in Sanskrit. And otherwise it’s out there on Google. Next question. What’s important is you trust it and you trust the way you’re doing it. So do your best and know that it will be good enough.

Nyondo: How can I usefully integrate the Vajrasattva practice in Dzogchen? I don’t want to mix up Dzogchen with Tantra.

Lama Lena: But they’re the same thing. Just one works with symbols and one’s a little more direct. Um, how can I integrate? Well, that bliss you sit in at the end? That’s the same as trekchod. You’re just getting to trekchod through a bunch of symbols instead of just sitting down and deciding to and it’s damn useful in case you’ve got smutch.

Nyondo: A question on the visualization. Does the mantra spin clockwise or counter clockwise?

Lama Lena: Clockwise.

Nyondo: Clockwise, okay. And how important is a crystal clear image in the visualization?

Lama Lena: Do the best you can. Very few people… well, depends on how you meant that. Don’t make it solid. It should be clear transparent light rather than solid. That is very important. But how well you visualize it, is not as important. Just do the best you can and trust that that will be good enough. Next.

Nyondo: Vajrasattva feels like it stirs up the mind more than other mantras. Any tips to avoid this unhelpful effect?

Lama Lena: Why is stirring up the mind unhelpful? What are you trying to do? Calm it? You don’t want to do that. That’s like trying to crawl up your own asshole and disappear. Tempting at times, though. No, you don’t want it all calm and smooth. You want all the colors and all the feelings transformed and released into their pure nature. So don’t try to smooth it out or calm it down. Leave it bumpy. Next.

Nyondo: Any tips for visualizing the Tibetan syllables?

Lama Lena: Stare at them a lot. Paint them. Draw them. Google them. Yes, I just typed this in English because, although I can type in Tibetan, I’m insanely slow at it. I mean, really hunt and peck. A word takes me quite a long time. And I did not want to do that. And the ancient… although I have the Tibetan for everything I told you, the ancient text is utterly falling apart. I’ve had it for… Oh, more than 50 years and it was on cheap paper in Nepal when I got it. So this was what I could get for you that you can use. Most of these you can find in the Tibetan symbols, the mantras out there available on Google and the Tibetan symbols OM, AH, and HUNG are easily findable for you. So I don’t have to do that for you. Research them and stick them where you’ll see him. Look at them a lot. They’ll go in. Same way you learned Western letters, to visualize.

“Q”. See? You can see a “Q” in your mind’s eye. You learned that, you weren’t born with that. Learn another! Next, if we have more.

Nyondo: Just a couple more here. Can we use this to help heal the body from illnesses?

Lama Lena: Absolutely.

Nyondo: And what tradition is this sadhana from, this practice?

Lama Lena: This happens to be from an old Gelugpa text, a Shakya text (where I couldn’t read what was left in the Gelugpa text) and some Nyingma. Rime. The reason being is, it’s in English – all the instructions are in English. And they say what is said slightly differently in Tibetan in each lineage.

And yes, I wrote it up last night in English, working from several… let’s see, I had a Shakya sadhana, I had two Gelugpa sadhanas, and one Nyingma sadhana all spread all over my lack of surface area and was going about and seeing what was the same in all of them and not really copying the Tibetan other than mantra. And that in phonetics for you.

If you have a specific lineage Vajrasattva sadhana that you are fond of, do that one instead. This is just nice and easy and simple for those of you who don’t already have one. Not too much chanting in Tibetan, that’s what I was trying to get away from here. So you’re just thinking it in English or speaking in your own words, which Tibetans don’t do, but Westerners can do as long as they stay to the meaning. So that part where you ask for Vajrasattva to purify you, where you make the request? Say that out loud, but use your own words. Next.

Nyondo: How do we practice if we don’t have a bell and dorje?

Lama Lena: You don’t do the sadhana or you visualize. Either way. This one:

OM BENDZA SATO AGHAM PARTITSA HUNG SOHO
OM BENDZA SATO PHADAM PARTITSA HUNG SOHO

And where you should ring the bell during the last mantra and also at the end when you offer music… [demonstrates clapping]

OM BENDZA SATO SHEPTA PARTITSA HUNG SOHO

Rhythm. Snap your fingers. You can’t play a flute because you’re singing. Twiddle a piano? Okay. Next.

Nyondo: Is this practice good for neuroses and depression?

Lama Lena: Yes. It’s not a specific for depression. It is a specific for neuroses. There’s another practice which I have taught, which is more of a specific for depression. Next.

Nyondo: Does one need an empowerment to practice Vajrasattva in the context of Dudjom ngondro?

Lama Lena: I don’t know since I don’t know that ngondro very well. You do not need one to practice it in the context of this sadhana. I was very careful to do that because some of you haven’t had it. I do recommend you get it. This is kriya until the end, until it goes into Dzogchen. Because everything goes into Dzogchen at the end and leaving it as Kriya, you don’t absolutely need the wang. So yes, this is designed to be practiced and I just left out all the Anuttarayoga tantra and Maha-Anuttara bits from the other sadhana. It’s okay, it’ll work.

Vajrasattva can be done as kriya. But I do recommend the wang will be going – it’s a really common wang to be given. Google it and see who’s going to do it next. Check them out! Don’t go taking a wang from someone who is either strongly involved in Tibetan politics (stay out of that). Like the New Kadampas? You really don’t want to get involved there – not if you’re a Dzogchen practitioner. Make sure that whoever it is, is not working with protectors against Dzogchen. That’s Tibetan politics. Keep your fingers out of it, it bites. And make sure there’s someone that, from a distance you can maintain faith in. So read up on them, check them out before you just dump yourself in a wang. Next.

Nyondo: A couple of different questions from I think people needing reassurances about visualization and whether they’re doing it properly. Some people saying, “Well, some of it’s vivid, but it feels good, and it’s…”

Lama Lena: You’re doing it fine! Practice it. First of all, it will get more vivid and intense at times and less vivid and intense at other times, because you go through changes doing it. Some of you – and one of the things you better have it wash out is the hang up of, “am I doing it right? Am I doing it right? Did I get it right? What if I got it wrong? Am I doing it wrong?” That little voice? That’s a big centipede. You go feed that to Yamantaka? Yes, you’re doing it fine. Next.

Nyondo: Can the Tibetan mantra be translated and then recited in English?

Lama Lena: No. It can be translated if you want to know what you’re saying. But no, you cannot say it in English. Half the things in there, there’s no word for. You’d end up with a page of words to get the same meaning, maybe three pages. That’s too much to recite. Say it in the original. All the mantras. Leave them in the original – they’re magic words. You have to say magic words in the language they’re in.

Nyondo: Why do some sadhanas have one transform into Vajrasattva while others like this one have one receiving from Vajrasattva?

Lama Lena: Because this is kriya and others are yoga tantra or above. In this, although it’s kriya I couldn’t not have the Dzogchen at the end where you do transform and rest in bliss, because that’s the whole point of it! I couldn’t leave out the main point. But those sadhanas where you work with yourself as the deity, as the archetype, are generally in yoga tantra or Anuttara Tantra and require a wang for you to do that properly. So since I knew I was teaching YouTube here and some of you will have a Vajrasattva wang and some of you won’t have a Vajrasattva wang.

If you have the wang and you want a full Maha-Anuttara sadhana, go check FMPT [correction: FPMT], Lama Yeshe’s group I believe has a copy of the old, 50-year-old one that I had and was part of what I was working from. If not, look around, there are Vajrasattva sadhanas out there. If you find one, you can email it to me as an attached PDF. Not in some weird system that I can open. And I will have a look at it and tell you if it’s any good. Because as you know, there’s weird shit out on the internet. So I will vet it for you if you want me to. If you don’t trust the site you got it from. You can pretty much trust anything from… FMPT?

Nyondo: FPMT

Lama Lena: FPMT – to be traditional. And that was the answer to that one. Is there much more?

Nyondo: No, there’s a couple of different questions. Can you explain again the journey that the mantra takes until it reaches sexual union?

Lama Lena: The mantra goes round and round on the heart disk, clockwise. It doesn’t go anywhere. It doesn’t journey, it just goes round and round.

Nyondo: and the mantra spins around both?

Lama Lena: It’s one heart chakra. Their chests are pressed together, their heart chakras have expanded and joined.

Nyondo: Okay, there was one other one here. Oh and can you repeat the name of the spider eating…?

Lama Lena: Slayer of Death.

Nyondo: The Slayer of Death.

Lama Lena: This refers to the phrase “unborn, undying” which refers to the nature of the Dharmata. The nature of the Dharmakaya, the nature of enlightenment. So Slayer of Death is that which actualizes beyond time and space, the unborn undying nature. Next.

Nyondo: Okay, I think that was the… I think that was the last question. You answered most of these and reassured a lot of people needing reassurance about pronunciation and visualization.

Lama Lena: Okay, for pronunciation. If there’s a lot of people having trouble with this. There was a guy in Tibet, a shepherd, nobody. He had great faith in his yidam. He had a really strong, oaky accent. He misheard the mantra of his yidam and was wildly mispronouncing it in his accent. But it worked and his yidam manifested before him and they had become friends. And he went about with his yidam all the time and they drank beer together, and they looked after sheep together. And it worked.

And one day, a scholar from [unclear] met him. And he was saying his mantra and the scholar laughed at him and said, “you’re doing it wrong. It’s also my yidam”. At which point, the yidam appeared and proceeded to scold the scholar for doing it wrong. Because, you see, the shepherd had faith. Do your best. Your best is good enough.

And for all those of you who always think that your best might not be good enough, that should be the first centipede you feed to Yamantaka, Slayer of Death. The same for visualization, do your best. As much or as little detail as you can imagine. And trust that it’s really there Vajrasattva is really there even if you can’t visualize him perfectly and then it will work nicely. Do you understand this? Your best is good enough here.

And we are complete for today.

Dedication of Merit
Geywa dee yee
Nur du da
Chey che sala
Go par shog

May all beings come to recognize their own innate kadak, primordial purity.

A couple of addendums to you all: 
For those of you for whom this has been translated, because English is not your native language, please make offerings to your translator. I believe there is a PayPal button on the website for Martin. And you’ll have to check in with the Portuguese, Russian and Mandarin translators exactly how you can do that. But please do that. They are all volunteered, unpaid, and if they are benefiting you, please take care of them during these difficult times if you can.

For any of you who wish to adopt a yogi or yogini and merge your practice with theirs, over in the caves and around the holy places of North India. I have some. I’ll give you one if you want one. It takes about 25 bucks a month. 25 euros, 25 Canadian, more or less kinda sorta to keep somebody in food for retreat for one month. That’s a pizza and beer, one night. So if you can spare one night of pizza and beer to have a yogi make retreat for you, when your life got too busy to do it yourself. I have some. Just let me know by sending me an email with that, not buried in with other questions, separate email that says, “hey, I think I’d like to sponsor a yogi, can you put me in touch?” That kind of thing. 

And what is on for next week?

Nyondo: One moment we’ll pull it up.

Lama Lena: Since my iPad was not being cooperative.

Nyondo: Okay. There’s my microphone. All right. So next week is Flight of the Garuda on Saturday,

Lama Lena: You Dzogchen [unclear] going to like that one.

Nyondo: Yeah and Sunday is a Q&A session.

Lama Lena: So if you come up with questions in the meantime before Sunday, ask them there. That’s Q&A on anything. I get some really good questions out of that one. It’s really one of the more fun things for me.

Okay, guys. I’ll see many of you next week. Some of you in the dream-time. Bye.