If you understand Tibetan, it’s nothing to do with the miracle going, miracle radiance. It’s more to do with your teacher telling you how to visualize, and what is the first stage of the visualization, what is the second stage of the visualization, what is the third stage of the visualization. With the bodhicitta, refuge, and then also confession, and then offering a mandala, taking a refuge to the Three Jewels, and then followed by taking a special refuge to the mandala itself, and then your guru giving introduction about how the mandala actually looks like, if it’s Avalokiteshvara or Green Tara, or like a Six-Armed Mahakala, or Chakrasavara.
So based on each empowerment, then whoever the instructor may be, have to explain to you, “this is the shape of the mandala, this is the colour of the mandala, this is the size of the mandala, this is where all the deities are located, whether the deities are within the each other the deities, or whether the deities are separate from one another within the mandala itself”.
So based on the introduction, at that time, you simply listen, you listen, and you meditate. You listen to all the instruction, at the simultaneously, then you meditate, and then simultaneously, then you receive the symbolic gesture of empowerment. So you have a small “bumpa” (བུམ་པ་་ – ritual vase), saying that “this has containing, think about all the buddha and bodhisattva’s blessing nectar in this vase and now you think about it, believe it, with your devotion, with your prayer, and then I give you this nectar” and then we receive it as a part of a nectar.
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So what you receive, the object, is not the empowerment. What you receive in all these object, is simply a symbolic. What you are visualizing, simultaneously, with your guru’s instruction, at the same time, with the introduction of the Three Jewels, and then you taking a Three Jewels prayer, then you offer mandala, confession, then you make a commitment of the bodhicitta, then you make again special prayer to the mandala, whichever the mandala may be. And then whichever the deity, then there’s a welcoming all the wisdom deity into a samaya deity, whether it’s you, whether it’s in front, then there’s a visualization separately.
So I cannot tell you everything. But I can tell you, very basic understanding of the empowerment. So basically all the instruction has to go simultaneously with your guru explaining from the refuge all the way until the dedication, your mind not being distracted and simultaneously visualizing it.
So if you can maintain your visualization simultaneously, then you have received the empowerment. If you cannot visualize simultaneously, then you can put it as an excuse, little bit like “Oh it’s for my karmic connection, maybe I will do better next time” you can put that as an excuse. You can keep that as an opening door, you can start, you can put that as a little bit like “Maybe I will do better next time”.
Kalu Rinpoche
FB Livestream – 20 December 2020
To be continued…
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