Tara III (in English for the first time and just for all of you :-)

[Guest guest]

HUNG HUNG HUNG From unstirring great emptiness, the primordial ground,

Realm of the very essence of thusness beyond all striving,

An intense and all-pervasive uncontrived compassion

Arises for ignorant and misguided beings.

Inherent awareness, luminous, empty and unobstructed,

Appears as a space-filling, red and flaming HUNG,

And wisdom light from this

Purifies grasping at the world and its content into primordial space.

In the triple-world palace of E (dharmadhatu realisation, beyond samsara

and nirvana),

On a lotus, sun-disc and haughty gyälpo and senmo,

>From the radiation and absorption by the causal HUNG-syllable,

I, myself, arise as the Mighty Lotus Blood-Drinker,

The Wrathful Heruka King of multiple attributes,

Great Supreme One of Enflamed and Indestructible Wrath (Chemchog Dorje Drolö),

Dark maroon in colour, blazing like the fire at the end of time,

His three hate-filled eyes flashing a thousand thunders,

His facial hair and eyebrows blazing like the kalpa-ending fire

As he chews at his lower lip, pressing it down with his fangs,

His face contorted in fury, the sound of HUNG roaring through his nostrils,

His orange hair curling upward in twisted locks.

In his right hand, he brandishes aloft in the vault of space

A nine-pointed meteorite dorje,

Its spokes blazing like bars of fire

And marked with nine HUNG and nine RAM,

As it seeks out and destroys all demonic spirits of the upper airs.

In his left, there is a meteorite p'urpa,

Sharp and hard, and subjugating the hearts of all obstructing spirits.

>From his fingertips, held in tarjanimudra (the mudra of threatening), iron

scorpions

With nine heads and eighteen horns

Stream forth in countless number,

Swiftly devouring all oath-breakers, king spirits and practitioners of evil

charms and magic.

He wears the secret robe, Dharma robes and boots,

Beautiful earrings of finest conch-shell,

And a garland of freshly cut and dripping heads.

Feet in the dancing posture of the hero,

He proudly rides on the back of a pregnant tigress,

Her claws tearing at the heart-root of the gyälpo and senmo.

Above his head, there is an emanation garuda

With wings of reddish-black fire,

Devourer of all serpents of the naga-race,

Its screaming voice shaking the three worlds.

In a vast expanse of swirling wisdom fire,

He dances with the steps of the nine different moods,

His three places marked with the seed-syllables of the three vajras.

By the melodious chanting of the light-filled HUNG in his heart,

The mind-stream of the Skull-Garlanded Guru in the realm of the

Copper-coloured Mountain

Is so powerfully invoked that he cannot but come

And, assuming many forms of the Terrifying Guru,

Rains down, dissolving into myself.

>From the bright red HUNG in the navel of the diamond vajra

Resting on the sun-disc in my heart,

Red HUNG-letters blaze forth

In countless clouds, swirling and streaming.

As they fill my body,

All propensity for sickness, demonic influences and sin in any of its three

doors

Are purified, burnt up and consumed without remainder.

Leaving the body via the right nostril,

A host of five-coloured HUNGs fills all of space

And, assuming the form of Dorje Trolö roaring HUNG,

Cause all noxious beings to swoon away in terror.

Bouncing up, dropping back and trembling from side to side, the world

shakes in three different ways.

Transforming back into HUNG-syllables as before,

They re-enter through the left nostril

And merge inseparably with the HUNG in my heart.

Ordinary "reality" dissolves into the state beyond mental construct,

The outer world and all its sentient beings,

Transform into the Body, Speech and Mind of the Wrathful Blood-Drinker.

 

Recite the approach mantra of the vira, the single syllable thrice-repeated.

 

The mantra mala, the colour of blazing hot iron,

Spins in a clockwise direction arbout the HUNG-syllable in my heart.

As it thus whirls like a spinning firebrand,

Spark-like lights stream forth with a crackling sound,

And incinerate all misleading spirits, samaya-breakers and enchanters

without exception.

Gathering up the life-essence of the eight classes of prideful ones,

It invokes the mind-stream of the Three Roots, as numerous as space is vast,

And their blessings, power and strength

Dissolve into me until I blaze with splendour

In my transformation body

Of the unrivalled great Tsen, Lord of the Triple World.

 

Thus, reciting the essential root-mantra, perfect the special accomplishment.

>From the mantra in the heart of myself, the Wrathful One,

Rays of razor light stream forth

And, attacking all demons, devils, king-spirits and enchanters,

Utterly cuts off their life root

 

.... and recite this 'piercing' mantra of subjugation and binding once for

every ten recitations of the root mantra, thus performing the activity.

 

Now the conclusion: At the end of the session...

 

The mandala of appearances - the basis of meditation and all the rest -

Are gathered into the causal principle, the blazing syllable HUNG,

Which then, in turn, dissolves into the vast expanse of primordial

emptiness...

.... From the state beyond birth, the sublime emanation reappears

In the form of the essential skilful display, Dorje Drolö Tsäl.

 

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PHAT The erroneous conceptual thought-patterns of grasping at self and

other are pure in their own nature;

The cause itself is subjugated and the conditions and appearances

suppressed by splendour.

 

PHAT I go for refuge in all holy objects of refuge;

I shall attain realisation in order that I may place all living beings on

the level of omniscience.

 

PHAT Inherently pure innate awareness is Vajrayogini

Shooting out of the crown of my head, she is the All-pervasive Liege Lady

of Cyclic Existence.

 

PHAT With the drigug-chopper in her right hand she cuts off the top of

my

skull

And sets it, vast as the entire trichiliocosm, upon three human head

hearth-stones,

Transforming the rest of the corpse in it into an ocean of nectar.

A continual ocean of clouds of offerings streams forth,

Filling all phenomenal worlds of cyclic existence without exception.

 

OM AH HUNG ... repeat three times...

 

PHAT PHAT PHAT

 

To the ocean of objects of refuge, the three rare and precious jewels and

three roots, I offer it;

To the host of awareness-holders of the three lineages of the three

dimensions of awakening I offer it;

To the ocean of oath-bound ones of the realm of primordial awareness I

offer it:

Grant that the accumulations be fulfilled and completed, obscurations be

purified, and the twofold goal spontaneously realised.

 

PHAT PHAT PHAT

 

The parent beings of the six realms, karmic creditors and obstructive spirits,

To all these recipients of offering I gladly present it:

All debts and liabilities without exception are cleared.

May they all attain manifest perfect buddhahood.

 

PHAT PHAT PHAT

 

I dedicate my roots of merit to the beings of the six realms;

May they all simultaneously attain buddhahood in a single mandala.

In the oneness of the act of giving, the offerings themselves and the

recipients,

I rest in the one taste of the expanse of the absolute dimension of

awakening of the Great Mother.

 

A A A

 

PHAT PHAT PHAT

 

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Some which might need a bit of explanation...

 

Ignoring the details for the moment, let us look just at the basic

structure of each of these sadhanas ('means of attainment')...

They all begin out of the space of basic openness, either with a mantra

that dissolves them into this state (e.g., the OM MAHA SHUNYATA mantra in

the first text), or one that states the state itself, e.g., A (the mantra

of peerless and penetrating insight) and so on...

>From this state - but without 'leaving' it - arises the radiance of a

seed-syllable (seed because everything else will arise from this) symbolic

of the union of wisdom and compassion, and this sends forth rays of light

to all the buddhas in salutation and offering and then to all sentient

beings as compassionate activity.

As the rays return from the buddhas, the mandala is created: from basic

space, air, from air water from water fire, from fire earth and the central

mountain, Sumeru, atop which is the Buddhafield surrounding which - from

outside, in - are a wall of flame, a net of vajras, a thousand-petalled

lotus, the eight great charnel grounds (one in each of the cardinal and

intermediate directions) and then the four-doored palace (be it wrathful or

peaceful) opening from the four cardinal directions upon a lotus, sun and

moon throne, upon which the seed-syllable, still radiating, now comes to

rest and, as the final rays of light returning from the buddhas of the ten

directions is absorbed into it, instantaneously appears as the deity

(peaceful or wrathful).

During the meditation session, one meditates on the fact that one is the

deity - form and openness inseparable - and that the universe surrounding

one is the mandala.

Then, when one has had enough of that, comes to concentrate on the heart of

the deity and the emblem and syllables there, and meditates upon them and

their activity (usually in the form of radiating light) for a while.

Then - and this is certainly the most important part of the session - from

the outside in, one slowly dissolves the entire visualisation into itself

and into the seed-syllable in the heart which then also slowly dissolves

from the bottom up and into the anusvara - the dot at the top of the

syllable that nasalises it (whereby, e.g., the vowel O becomes OM), and

this slowly dissolves up the 'nada' - a wavy, ever-decreasing line symbolic

of primordial sound - and into the state beyond form, or thought, there

remaining for as long as one can.

As the first thought stirs, the meditator instantaneously generates the

entire mandala again in all its detail, and dedicating the merit of the

practice to the mbenefit of all sentient beings, sets about his or her

daily activity.

These phases in what is, in effect, a guided meditation, have several

purposes.

The initial state of openness is to remind one from whence one comes - is

always and eternally coming.

The nature of this quintessential openness is radiant awareness and

all-encompassing compassion. These are meditated upon in the following stages.

Then - still maintaining the initial state of openness, one causes it to

manifest as a container (the univers) and its content (beings) for whose

benefit this practice is being performed in the first place (all Buddhist

practice commences with a recognition of primordial Buddhahood and a vow to

work only for the benefit of others)... One's usual attitude toward place

and people and things is to rob theml of their splendour by regarding them

as 'only just another ... whatever...'. Here, by regarding the universe as

a divine mansion, its beings as deities, all sound as mantra and all

thought as enlightened awareness, on begins to restore some of the value

one has forever stolen.

The various elements of the mandala itself - it's doors, walls, colours,

ornaments, roofs and so on all relate to aspects of the psyche in need of

purification - and the lotus, sun and moon discs and seed-syllable are said

to purify the four types of birth, to wit, from a womb, an egg, by heat and

moisture, and by miraculous emanation.

The same is true of the 'deity' or 'central deity and retinue' of the

mandala, each item of clothing and ornament, and each feature referring to

some aspect of enlightened awareness (the four heads above, for example,

referring NOT to the four elements, but to the four boundless attitudes of

limitless love, limitless compassion, limitless sympathetic joy in the

well-being of others, and limitless equanimity)...

Deities in union represent skilful means (the male consort) as a direct

expression of wisdom (the female consort), and during visualisation, one is

BOTH these deities, not just one or the other.

The fire refers to the flames of wisdom that burn up and illume all

darkness and ignorance - sometimes rather abruptly... The practices of

subjugation, and so forth, are all skilful means for overcoming the

overwhelming demons of one's OWN attitudes and awareness... They have

nothing to do with magic or black magic and the subjugation of others. One

is one's own obstacles, one's own enemies, one's own demonic obstructions.

It is here that they have to be subjugated in exactly the same way that a

sandal on the foot serves the same purpose as covering the entire world

with leather - it keeps out the small stones and thorns.

Meditation upon a deity, whatever its nature, peaceful or otherwise, is

said to require at least as many hundred-thousand repetitions of its mantra

as there are syllables in the mantra itself. Sometimes as many million or

ten million repetitions will not suffice - depends on the meditator - but

the result sought in this first phase - the so-called 'creation phase' of

the meditation - is that the practitioner come to really embody the

enlightened nature and activity of the deity on which he or she is meditating.

When this is stabilised, a second phase begins, whereby the practitioner

enters the practice of dissolving attachment to what he or she has created

in the steps preceding. At this point various yogas are given, related to

the cycle of the deity being practiced, mainly in the form of physical

postures and intensive exercises concerning breath and subtle physical

energy, whereby the practitioner finally becomes able to dissolve subtle

and extremely subtle attachments to deluded awareness, following which the

perfect dissolution of the visualisation is accomplished, the practitioner

and deity blend like water poured into water or light mixing with light in

the state beyond all mental arisings.

The last phase, having dedicated the merit to all beings, is for the

practitioner to then attempt in the period between sessions to perform all

actions in the spirit of the deity he has thus evoked.

Note that the term 'deity' translates the Tibetan 'yidam' and Sanskrit

'ishtadevata' which mean 'meditation deity', that is to say, a skilful

means. As it says in the Tantras: 'The deities are the path'.

I hope it is clear from this that what a mandala is NOT is circular diagram

or image of integration. It is, in effect, an energy-field pertaining to a

particular approach to the primordial awakenedness that is at the heart of

each and every one of our perceptions of 'reality'.

 

Sorry. This *definitely* was a long and complex one!

 

m

 

Much Love,

~ Annette ~

[Guest guest]

Thank you

Lynne