Practicing Purity

Vajrasattva with his consort (Tibetan: dor je sem pa yab yum)

The view of tantra holds that attainment depends on purifying negativity.

Utilize the Vajrasattva practice as much as possible, to realize the non-self-existence of negativity and of self. Vajrasattva is the manifestation of the purity of all Buddhas.

Broken tantric vows are the most  serious obstacle to realizations. According to “The Essential Ornaments,” twenty-one daily recitations of Vajrasattva mantras ensures our negative karma does not increase.

Visualizing Vajrasattva

Suspended above your head visualize an open white lotus with a thousand petals, upon it the disc of a full moon, and upon the moon, a white syllable hūm. The hūm transforms into the glorious root teacher, sambhogakāya Buddha, Vajrasttva.

He is brilliant white in color, with one face and two arms. His right hand holds before his heart the five-pronged vajra of awareness and emptiness. In his left the bell of appearance and emptiness at his left hip. His two legs are crossed in vajra posture. He is adorned with the thirteen ornaments of the sambhogakāya-

The five silken garments: headband; upper garment; long scarf; belt; lower garment

The eight jewels: crown; earrings; short necklace; armlets on each arm; two long necklaces of differing length; bracelet on each wrist; a ring on each hand; anklet on each foot

Vajrasattva embraces, in inseparable union, his consort, Vajratopa, also brilliant white.

Practice

Visualize Vajrasattva and his consort seated on a lotus and moon, their bodies of radiant white light above you (as described). 

While reciting the Vajrasattva mantra:

    om vajrasattva hūm

Use one of three visualization techniques:

First method: white nectar flows down Vajrasattva’s and his consort’s hearts, through their central channels, and to their joined lower chakras. The nectar enters through your crown, filling your central channel and purifying you. Your negative energy is forced out and dissolves into the earth.

Second method: the nectar flowing from Vajrasattva and his consort, pours down your central channel  and fills you from feet to crown. Your impure energy leaves your body through your nostrils and mouth. This method is subtler than the first

Third method: the blissful white light-energy with rainbow hue of Vajrasattva and consort instantly shatters any inner darkness. It illuminates your brain, throat and heart chakra activating the nonfunctioning parts of your brain and nervous system, leaving no space for impurities of body, speech, and mind. Your body becomes transparent as crystal.

These visualization meditation techniques with recitation of the mantra bring results and should be practiced.

“May there be no obstacles to our accomplishment of inner fire. May we all attain realization in this lifetime.

Hundred Syllable Mantra

ཨོཾ་བཛྲ་སཏྭ་ས་མ་ཡ་མ་ནུ་པཱ་ལ་ཡ། 
བཛྲ་སཏྭ་ཏྭེ་ནོ་པ་ཏིཥྛཱ། 
དྲྀ་ཌྷོ་མེ་བྷ་ཝ། 
སུ་ཏོ་ཥྱོ་མེ་བྷ་ཝ། 
སུ་པོ་ཥྱོ་མེ་བྷ་ཝ། 
ཨ་ནུ་རཀྟོ་མེ་བྷ་ཝ། 
སརྦ་སིདྡྷིམྨེ་པྲ་ཡ་ཙྪ། 
སརྦ་ཀརྨ་སུ་ཙ་མེ ཙིཏྟཾ་ཤཱི་ཡཾ་ཀུ་རུ་ཧཱུྃ། 
ཧ་ཧ་ཧ་ཧ་ཧོཿ 
བྷ་ག་ཝཱན 
སརྦ 
ཏ་ཐཱ་ག་ཏ་བཛྲ་མ་མེ་མུཉྩ། 
བཛྲི་བྷ་ཝ་མ་ཧཱ་ས་མ་ཡ་སཏྭ

ཨཱཿ །། ཧཱུྂ ཕཊ༔
——
oṃ

O Vajrasattva honour the agreement!
Reveal yourself as the vajra-being!
Be steadfast for me!
Be very pleased for me!
Be fully nourishing for me!
Be passionate for me!
Grant me all success and attainment!
And in all actions make my mind more lucid!
hūṃ
ha ha ha ha hoḥ
O Blessed One, vajra of all those in that state, don't abandon me!
O being of the great contract be a vajra-bearer!
āḥ hūm phat

Vajrasattva (Tibetan: rdo rje sems dpa) Literally rendered in English as “Spiritual Hero of Indestructible Reality,” Vajrasasttva is an aspect of Akshobhya, the deity associated with the vajra family, who may appear in a blue form or a white form. In the context of preliminary practice, in particular, the recitation  of the Vajrasattva’s  hundred-syllable mantra is said to bring about purification of anger and hatred specifically. He is depicted as seated, holding a vajra in his right palm close to his heart and a bell in his left hand close to the left side of his hip.     

2 Replies to “Practicing Purity”

Leave a Reply