Empowerment is not there to give you miracles. The empowerment is there to give you example, so that you visualize along with your instructor, how to visualize the mandala, how to carry on with your positive intention, how to carry on with the dedication, how to carry on with the creation, how to transmit all the radiance, and all the syllable, all the body, speech and mind of the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, that is within the deities inseparably as one. Not separate, but as one, and then being devoted to that mandala, and then receiving a blessing based on devotion, compassion, generosity and sense of content all together.
So all these putting together, combined together is “empowerment”. Empowerment is not having an object that is putting on your crown, under no circumstances. If you study the empowerment, every single empowerment is the same. Every single empowerment is same, basically the principle.
The principles start with the refuge, bodhicitta, the samaya. There’s no such as blindly following the guru, under any circumstances, okay? There’s absolutely zero blind following to the guru. There’s simply sense of genuine quality from your side, and having a sense of gratitude, offering a mandala, seeking for the Dharma to be transmitted towards you, and then you receive these teachings and these transmissions. So called the transmission, basically the transmission is receiving the instruction of the visualization of the mandala itself. And then sometimes it can be as simple as a deity of yourself and the visualizing a deity in the front. Or it can be sometimes, it can be a vast mandala. And sometimes it can be a five mandala, sometimes it can be several mandalas. So depending on to different deity practice, so depending into that.
And then there’s the external empowerment, internal empowerment, then there’s the secret empowerment, then there’s the absolute empowerment. So empowerment is not just simply a one vase of phumba touching your head. So if you have these understandings, then you understand the whole concept about the empowerment.
So basically the conclusion is, the empowerment is simply instructing who is the practitioner, you are instructing the practitioner how to maintain the visualization, how to maintain your mandala basically. And then you as a practitioner be completely, with full of gratitude, and then you seeing that as a genuine refuge. And then over time, with less and less duality of mind, and then you recognize the nature of mind, emptiness. So the meaning of recognizing the deity is not the ultimate goal. It is a temporary goal. But we have to cherish as the ultimate goal. So that’s something very important to keep in mind.
All the deity practice is a temporary purpose, but we have to practice as if it is the ultimate solution. With that mind, with a pure mindset. And then gradually you will reach to the state of non-duality over time. Not because you know it that you will reach there, you will reach there because of your capacity of your realization.
So if your desire can reach everywhere, then that is simply not the fact anymore right? Everybody wants to be many things in life, but still we are reluctant to reach where we want to reach, right? So just like that, in our spiritual level of understanding, in the Dharmic understanding, there’s a gradual approach. The gradual approach and then with a sense of patience and with a sense of awareness combined together. That is very important, it’s one of the most important principle.
Kalu Rinpoche
FB Livestream – 11 April 2021
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