Last Day of 33rd Kalachakra Empowerment

By Tenzin Menkyi Choglamsar, Jul 17, 2014
Choglamsar :
On 12th July, at around 12pm, the prayers began. The Vajra Master, Tenzin Gyatso began prayers by paying homage to Prajnaparamita, the mother of all Buddhas; verses of salutation for Abhisamayalankara, the ornament of realization; homage of mothers of bodhisattvas and Buddhas; two verses of salutation for Mūlamadhyamakakārika, fundamental Verses on the Middle Way, written by Nagarjuna, one of the most important Buddhist philosopher and homage to the Buddha for teaching dependent of origination and being free from the eight extremes.

His Holiness recited few verse and said, “This is calling on all the deities, demi-gods, Ashura and for all sentience beings to come here to the place to listen to the nectar of teaching of the Buddha, which does away with our negative and destructive emotions.  In the respective language of Gods, humans and Ashuras and so forth: I give this teaching”

His Holiness continued: In Tibet, in the past Serkong Dorje Chang of Galden Monastry gave Kalachakra initiation. At that time he said, “Not only those who are actually present at the site where he gave teaching received Kalachakra initiation, but everyone within the boundary of Gaden monastery have actually received the teaching”. Similarly, those who have gathered here personally will of course receive the initiation but also there are people inside Tibet and China proper who intended and wish to receive Kalachakra initiation but because of obstacles or circumstances, there are not able to come here, thus I have visualize them and make my prayers for them as well.

"Yesterday, we finished the preliminary process of the initiation, today is the one part of actual initiation as we divided the whole process of initiation into three days. Today we will have the entry into the Mandala. We have done some of the preliminary yesterday, that also during the preliminary we covered primarily how extreme self-centred attitude or self-cherishing attitude is the cause of all the problems and troubles and how to counter it with Bodhicitta, Also all of you have received the teachings on selflessness or emptiness which counter our grasping at some colourful independent self and independent existence in things, which forms the foundation for Kalachakra initiation. In short: not committing any evil; cultivating a wealth of virtue and taming the mind completely are the teaching of the Buddha" said the 14th Dalai Lama.

"With regards to negative action or sin; you cannot talk about sin as solid independent existing entity, it has to come through many different factors coming together. When you do an action which harm other, that’s called a sin because, this action with bring unhappiness in the other person, consequently, you too will have the effect of pain within yourself", the Dalai Lama continued.
The Vajra master added, "In the Buddhism, it's not that, if you do anything good, you get a blessing from God or from the three Jewels, but it is said that anything you do, positive or negative, is depended on one's own mind. Therefore, not only can we judge the positive and negative action by external body and speech, but it is mainly in relation to our mind. So, a calm and disciplined mind with lead to positivity and any action out of negative motivation and undisciplined mind will lead to negativity.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama taught in details about taming or disciplining the mind, importance of reducing the negative state of mind and promoting state of mind which are positive and brings happiness. How attachment and anger will adversely affect our mind and life.
His Holiness recited prayers, in order to give Kalachakra initiation for maturing the mind for practice of Kalachakra, obstacle beings are summoned to the place to accept the offering of Torma ritual cake so that they may not hinder the process of initiation.  The evil spirits were asked to leave and were driven away. Vajra fence is created to protect from any hindrances.

The process of leading the disciples into the mandala of Kalachakra was held today. The Dalai Lama said: "I have done the self-generation of entire complete body, speech and mind meditation of Kalachakra. Also, including the pristine wisdom mandala in the centre most part of the Kalachakra, with the body mandala at the outer edge and inside is the speech mandala, the mind mandala inside it and at the centre is the pristine awareness mandala.  I have done preparation of the ten vases, which were generated into the deities. I did the front generation of the deities, having done that  I took the seven initiations in the pattern of child rearing, which a Lama must do. So, the Kalachakra initiation, transmission and giving explanation of kalachakra, which is in regard to the condensed tantra have been done.
In the system of Kalachakra, there is outer, inner and alternate Kalachackra. Outer refers to the external habitats where sentience beings live, internal refers to the sentience being who inhabit these dwelling, particularly it refers to human beings born from the womb, who have the aggregates, the constituent factors, the sources of consciousness also the different organs, limbs and so forth. So the external and internal kalachakra are those object to be purified,  while the alternative cycles are practices for gaining liberation from these two.
His Holiness explained that "the best recipient of the Kalachakra initiation is the Bikshus,  according to the root tantra of the Kalachakra. While qualifying with common and uncommon practices, the Lama, who may not have yet overcome all the four negative forces within himself, but one who is someone who has reached certain stage in their spiritual progression, and that they are able to overcome them to a certain degree. So, of course, I do not have such qualification, but I have some familiarity with the common general path. Then when you have some understanding of emptiness and with that if you do the practices; it really gives some taste of the practice. Although I have not had any opportunity or time to cultivate single-pointed concentration, partly because of my busy schedule but partly due to my laziness. But when I do the tantric practice, I can feel some kind of concentration and I can follow the linage lama's prayers and visualize of them without much obstruction, which comes with familiarization.

A day back people were told to check their dream. His Holiness interpreted the dreams saying if any Lama and deities comes in one's dream; it's an auspicious sign. But if on saw a dream of garden with red flowers is considered to be an inauspicious dream. If one woke up with the happy feeling is a good sign and if one feel uneasy when one woke up is not an auspicious sign. He said there are many different ways of checking dreams. The dream of course comes through the causes and conditions. He warned, one should not be too excited if one had an auspicious dream and one should be too sad if one had a bad dream. Inauspicious dream can be overcome with meditations of compassion, love and kindness.

The entry into the mandala has two sections; entering blindfolded and entering as one who can see the mandala. Sets of mantras were repeatedly recited. With regard to the initiation, there is initiation which matures the disciples, initiation for liberation and initiation which is a result in state.     Meditation on emptiness was explained in details.

People were told to wear the red ribbon which was distributed earlier and asked to repeat few mantras after the Dalai Lama. Disciples were then asked to visualise themselves transforming into Vajrasatwa and his consort and check where one stands. Exact description of the Vajrasattwa was given in details by the Vajra Master. Many other instructions were given by the Dalai Lama and devotees follow suit.

A flower, given to each devotee, was told to throw on the mandala (to be visualize) and hope to fall to whichever deities of five Buddha Family one has the strongest Karmic connection. A mantra was asked to be repeated after the Dalai Lama. He then asked the devotees to stick the same flower on forehead or head, and to imagine that one has received the flower garland initiation. He also asked the devotees to keep the flower, Kusha grass and the protection cord as it would remind one of having received the Kalachakra initiation.

Devotees were then asked to remove the red blindfold and to imagine that one is inside the mandala and one is able to see the entire Kalachara Mandala.

Sooner the devotees were introduced to the deities. Deities of body, speech and mind was introduced in detail.
The day was concluded with the brief teachings on the transmission of succession of the Kalachakra. Also he spoke on the importance of Tibetan language, "not because I am a Tibetan, but because Kangyur and Tengur is written only in Tibetan or Bhoti Language, and only this language will explain the Dharma precisely. So to preserve and study Dharma one must study Tibetan language" explained His Holiness.