Namo, Guru Vajrasattvaye
Homage to Lama Dorje Sempa!
Many people who say they are students of other Lamas come to me and ask what practices they should do or how they should structure their practices on daily basis. Most of them have received many empowerments of different deity cycles and their mantras and feel confused and sometimes guilty about not being able to recite all different deity mantras they have accumulated and made promises to keep. In one way, perhaps they are asking me for an easy way out by which they can do less and still be called good Buddhists. Not withstanding specific samayas given by Lamas to their students in the course of individual guidance and commitments which stem from that particular relation, and although there is no standard answer for each and every one of these people, I offer this for reflection in the hopes that it clarifies confusion and allows for the continuous flow or practice that would otherwise become unobstructed by doubts.
All of the deity practices we do by and large represent or are manifestations of fully enlightened Buddhas with the transcendental eye of wisdom. Addressing these deities, we can say that none of them depart from Buddha nature, Tathagata Garbha. Although they arise in various wisdom forms for the benefit of trans-migratory beings through various methods, they are themselves of one basic essence.
For example, when Chenrezig knows you have accomplished Varjasattava practice, he is not upset that Vajrasattva did the job or that you were not loyal to Chenrezig because the accomplishment of Vajrasattva has already assured the full and complete ripening of relative and non-dual Bodhichitta. Similarly, Tara does not get jealous when you practice Kurukule, their basic feminine principle being of the same essence.
From this viewpoint, the basic realization attainment of any single Buddha mandala means that all of them have been essentially accomplished.
But this understanding may still not liberate one’s mind-stream from the conundrum of choice about which deity to practice on any given day. On the one hand, it is best to ask your own Lama for his or her advice. However, having received many empowerments from various Lamas who have travelled through a town nearby and so forth, one may not be able to ask any follow up questions for specific individual guidance.
Here I would like to draw your attention to the deity Vajrasattva, the deity of precept. The two main mantra practices of Vajrasattva’s one hundred syllable mantra and the six syllable mantra both, when practiced properly, purify all defilements and obscurations of every kind and also purify and mend all broken samayas, sacred promises and commitments. In this sense, if one were truly feeling the need to accomplish all the deities recitation accomplishment cycles within one deity practice, Vajrasattva would be an excellent choice. It is said that reciting the long 100 syllable Vajrasattva mantra at least 21 times per day, that no additional obscuration will be accumulated and recitation of 100 of the 100 syllable mantra will assure all samayas are mended and swift progress will be attained.
In A Torch Lighting the Way to Freedom, His Holiness Dudjom Jigdral Yeshe Dorje Rinpoche stated:
“This meditation and recitation is the internal cleansing method of the unsurpassable Secret Mantra Vehicle, so it is entirely appropriate to apply it at the beginning of all one’s sessions. In any case, if one recites the hundred syllables one hundred and eight times in a single session, concentrating without any distraction and without adulterating the recitation with ordinary speech, all one’s past negative actions, obscurations, and deteriorations and breaches will definitely be purified —
As Vajrasattva himself has promised in the Tantra of Stainless Parting: The quintessence of the mind of all the Sugatas purifies all deteriorations, breaches, and conceptual obscurations. Known as the hundred syllables, it is the king of all purifications by parting. To recite it one hundred and eight times at one sitting repairs all deteriorations and breaches and saves one from falling into the three lower realms. Practitioners who recite it as a daily practice will, even in this very lifetime, be guarded and protected by the Buddhas of past, present, and future, who will think of them as their most excellent children. And at their death, there is no doubt they will become chief of all the Sugatas’ heirs.
The boundless benefits of this practice are also described in numerous texts, among them the Tantra of the Three Verses on the Wisdom Mind: Those who meditate on Vajrasattva and recite the mantra perfectly will purify all their negative actions and become the same as Vajrasattva. and the Tantra of the Song of Vajrasattva, which declares: The self-arisen essence, the hundred-syllable mantra, Is the seed of all the Buddhas. It destroys all deteriorations and breaches. and, for those who hold the hundred syllables untimely death will not occur, nor will illness and misery befall them. For those who hold the hundred syllables there will be no poverty or pain. Their enemies will disappear, and all their wishes will be fulfilled. Those who hold the hundred syllables and want a child, will have a child; If they seek riches, riches they’ll obtain; and when they’re homeless, they will find a home. If you wish to prolong your life, you should hold the hundred syllables.
Even if you’ve come to this life’s end, you’ll easily live three hundred years. In this life you will be happy, at death you’ll go to the blissful realm. Dakinis, elemental spirits, and those that possess and resurrect the dead, spirits that cast defilement, negative forces, and those that destroy memory can not harm the holders of the hundred syllable mantra. Even beings with great downfalls will surely see the Buddhas. By reciting the secret mantra vehicle’s hundred syllables the stupid will become intelligent, and the ill-fated will have good luck. Calamities and misery will be no more. Even those burdened by the five sins with immediate effect will be purified by reciting the hundred syllables. In those and subsequent lives, they will become universal monarchs and the like. Finally, they will devote themselves to liberation and attain Buddhahood. “
- Dudjom Rinpoche -
Again practicing the one hundred syllable mantra in this way, whenever one has time to focus on individual practices, one can do so one at a time either alongside Vajrasattva practice or by entering a closed concentrated retreat on a specific deity which will then consummate the samayas of all other deities while you are doing that retreat.
Vajrasattva also brings one in direct alignment with one’s primordial nature that we have never been separated from but have forgotten. This makes the practice of Vajrasattva also very appropriate as a preparation for death and assuring positive future rebirths within Dharma spheres.
This was written by a Lama who wears white externally while the five darkening poisons still lurk around the corners of his internal spaces begging for purification. May the example of at least wearing white clothes help a bit, and may all be purified.