Kalachakra Sadhana: The Supreme Triumphant Actions

Then what happens is that you join the beings for deep awareness; that’s the wisdom beings. This is quite interesting actually.

We had the winds of the different elements, and in Kalachakra there are winds which do pass through the central channel in the ordinary situation, which you don’t have in the Guhyasamaja description of the winds. These are the winds of deep awareness, the deep awareness element winds, and you have 675 such breaths during the course of the day. 

What happens is on the basis level, analogous with as soon as you’re born the first 56¼ breaths (this analysis of the breaths is just unbelievable) are going to be breaths of the deep awareness winds moving out of the central channel to start off the whole process of breathing of an infant as soon as it’s born. All this comes out of the second chapter, on the inner development of the body. And what it does is it comes out of the central channel through the navel. So, it had started at the heart, goes out through the navel and then up the side channels and out both nostrils equally. By the power of that, the sensors are awakened: the eye sensor, the ear sensors; and then the six consciousnesses become involved with the six objects; then you start to get involvement with objects.

Vajravega, Diamond-Strong Strength, the forceful form, is the purification of the deep awareness winds, the winds that move through the central channel. We visualize him at our heart in the central channel, because that’s where he would start off. Just as when the infant’s consciousness starts to take objects, the objects must be taken by a consciousness that’s mounted on wind – the consciousness can’t do it just by itself, it has to be on a wind. Analogous with this, Vajravega is on a chariot, on a mount of something. You have him on a chariot of an eight-limbed one. An eight-limbed one is like a gryphon: it’s a lion with a garuda’s head, an eagle’s head, that has four legs, and then it has two wings and two claws of a garuda. Vajravega is riding on this. He’s the purification of the deep awareness breaths. And we start off with 56¼ of them in the central channel. Actually, you get 56¼ of these breaths in between each of the 12 shifts in a day, so that makes 675 in a day. 

It’s interesting because the number of deep awareness breaths that you have in the central channel in a 100-year lifespan of 21,600 breaths a day, which would be 670 deep awareness breaths per day for 100 years – that number, which is a very large number, is equal to the number of breaths at 21,600 a day, in the period of three years and three phases of the moon. That’s where the three-year three-month retreat comes from: it’s from the number of deep awareness breaths that one has in a lifespan of 100 years, which is equal to the number of ordinary breaths that you have in three years and three phases of the moon. Everything becomes very symbolic. Why you do three-year three-month retreats, for instance, is all symbolic of getting all the deep awareness winds in the central channel and dissolving everything there. 

Vajravega goes out on a chariot, and the chariot is signifying the wind that the consciousness would have to go out on in order to make the senses activated. It goes out with the exhaled breath, which is similar to the deep awareness breaths being the first breaths that go out of the nose when an infant is born.

This is similar to, just as at the time of birth, the wind comes out of the navel chakra, and then the consciousness on it goes out, and it hooks in and takes its objects, and then the wind returns to the navel chakra. When the wind goes out, it’s going from the heart, goes out through the navel, into the right and left channel, and you breathe out and in. Likewise, those winds are going to the senses, and the senses, the energies, are going out and bringing in objects and coming back in; and it hooks them in so that you’re able to be involved with objects. These deep awareness winds go back in as you’re inhaling, and they go back to the navel chakra, and from the navel chakra they go back up into the central channel.

Symbolizing that, Vajravega hooks Kalachakra in his navel, because that’s signifying that the winds are going to go out of the central channel, starting from the heart, out of the navel, and then go back into the navel. The navel is a very important thing. So, the text says:

He emanates forth simultaneously with my exhaled breath and latches on with his elephant-hook to the navel of the principal figure of beings for deep awareness who are similar to the ones I have been meditating on. 

Principal figure for deep awareness is Kalachakra.

He binds his twenty-four hands with his serpentine grappling-rope and, intimidating him with his remaining weapons, draws him here to the space in front. Vajravega then dissolves into my heart.

I’m not quite sure (it’s not in the commentary) what that symbolizes, but what I imagine that is binding the other winds, so that they also go into the central channel; that’s why he binds his arms. It’s not that it’s some sort of a violent movie that’s happening here. And he brings him in front of you. This is symbolizing making the senses activated on a basis level, and on a purifying level what we’re trying to do is to get the winds to come back into the central channel.

Why is it frightening? I can’t imagine Kalachakra being frightened.

Well, it’s frightening in the sense that what you want to do is frighten the winds, you want to stop them in their tracks; it’s all symbolic. You don’t want to imagine that Kalachakra himself is horribly scared and comes back shaking; it’s not like that. All of it is symbolic to get the winds back into the navel. You bring him in front of you, and then you make these offerings, and then you combine the wisdom beings.

VAJRA BHAIRAVA AKARSHAYA JAH. JAH HUM BAM HOH HI

It says “Vajrabhairava,” and that’s Vajravega. He’s also called Vajrabhairava. Akarshaya means to hook in, and then you have JAH HUM BAM HOH HI. In the longer sadhanas these are each correlated to five of the forceful Buddhas. What happens with the JA is Vajravega hooks in with his hook, and that’s the mind consciousness being purified and now starting to take objects. Because as we said, when the deep awareness wind goes out of the navel when you’re born, the sensors and all these things start to operate. So, Vajravega, the main one, is for mind consciousness.

Then with the HUM they’re made to enter. So, you draw in the deep awareness beings here: that’s the Kalachakra mandala. You have your mandala around you. You draw in the deep awareness beings, you make offerings to them, and then they combine with the ones who are around you. Now they combine in order. It’s not just – bam! – they’re there, but first the main couple, then the deities around – the ten powerful ladies, then the figures in the corners, then the male and female Buddhas, the male and female bodhisattvas, and it goes out – one by one you have them combine until you finally get the building combining also. You have the building here as well. And it’s a process of this JAH HUM BAM HOH HI.

The JAH or DZA is Vajravega, for mind consciousness. Vajravega hooks them in with his hook; that’s mind consciousness being purified. The HUM is that they’re made to enter by Prajnantikirt with his vajra, and that’s the eye consciousness being purified. The BAM is that they’re being bound with Yamantikirt with a vajra lasso, and that’s the purification of body consciousness starting to work. The HOH is that they’re pleased by Padmantikirt with his bell, and this is the tongue consciousness starting to work; the tongue is usually correlated with a bell, as you have the tongue inside the bell. And HI is that they’re made of one taste by Vignantikirt with his vajra stick, and that’s the purification of nose consciousness.

This whole process of hooking them in, making them enter, binding them there, pleasing, making it blissful and then making them with one taste is all terribly reminiscent of bringing the winds into the central channel, binding them there, having them become blissful and becoming of one taste, dissolving. That’s the whole thing that we’re trying to have this ripen into when we get the discriminating awareness beings combining with the close-bonding ones around you: bringing everything back into the central channel.

Then what happens is that you get empowerment and the crown seals; so, you call forth the empowering deities. You’ve gotten the discriminating awareness beings to come in, which is analogous on the basis level with the whole process of being born outside the womb, and there was this thing of melting into the drops and then being aroused again with the songs, so that’s the winds making us be born. Then as soon as we get out, we generate the whole mandala again, because that’s to signify that now the body, speech and mind become visible and start to work. Then we have Vajravega go out and bring the deep awareness beings in, which is signifying that the breath now leaves the central channel as soon as you’re born and makes the sensors operate, and now you’re involved with objects.

Next, you get the empowerment and the seals, and this isn’t analogous to anything. There’s no need for everything to be symmetrical and everything to be analogous. To get empowerment is just to become part of the whole Kalachakra practice. 

You call forth the empowering deities with the five-color lights from the HUM at your heart. The commentary doesn’t give any analogy, as I said. What you do is you call forth the deities of the mind mandala, but not the building; there’s no building here. It’s just the deities, the configuration of the mind mandala. That’s with the couple, the eight ladies around. Then you have the Buddhas around them, and then on the level underneath, you have the bodhisattvas around them, and then the forceful deities in the four doors, and another one on top and one on bottom.

You have this configuration of deities come in, and they’re the ones that are going to give you empowerment. There’s no building, so that means that you don’t go into the building to receive the empowerment. Because in the full sadhana what you do is you get the 11 empowerments individually; not quite as much detail as the actual empowerment, but you have all the mantras from the actual empowerment, and each one done quite individually to purify the aggregates, the elements, the senses, the winds, all the things that you have in the regular empowerment. It goes through them individually, and you just stay where you are; everybody stays where they are. It’s not just you as the main couple that’s getting empowerment. Everybody is getting empowerment: all 722 of you, not just the nine figures. Everyone gets empowerment, and then you get the crown ornaments, the crown seals.

It says:

As the main figure, I become sealed with an Akshobhya, the mother with a Vajrasattva, and so on, 

What you’re crowned with is that Vajrasattva (who doesn’t appear, and so you don’t actually crown him, but Vajrasattva in theory) and Kalachakra, the main figure, are crowned by Akshobhya, who is green. The mother, that’s Vishvamata, and the eight ladies around her are crowned with Vajrasattva and also Akshobhya (who doesn’t appear either, and Akshobhya in theory is also crowned with Vajrasattva). And it says:

each with the ruling figure of his or her family in the aspect of a supreme Nirmanakaya. 

Actually, it gets very complicated very quickly, but in the longer sadhanas Kalachakra himself and the six dhyani Buddhas, the six male Buddhas, are crowned with the head of their own family as a monk, Nirmanakaya. It says “supreme Nirmanakaya,” so it’s a monk. Kalachakra here is crowned by a green monk in monk’s robes, being Akshobhya. Everybody is crowned by the head of their own family, except that deep awareness crowns consciousness, and consciousness crowns deep awareness.

Here it doesn’t really pertain, because you don’t have the other families, but it means that Kalachakra being in the nature of Vajrasattva here is crowned with Akshobhya, who’s green. If you have the full one, you would have the dhyani Buddhas around, and the Kalachakra would be crowned with little Buddhas in robes as a monk; this is signifying that the impure aggregates become pure and also purifying a householder into a monk. There’s that level of the purification of that. Whereas the Vishvamata, that’s the lady, and the eight powerful ladies, and everybody else are crowned with the heads of their families as Sambhogakaya couples. What happens is that on everybody else you’ll get a Sambhogakaya couple. 

Here in our nine-deity practice our main figure, Kalachakra, has a little green Buddha on his head and the powerful ladies around us, and our main partner will be crowned by a blue Vajrasattva, but as a couple. That means a little Vajrasattva with three faces, six arms, blue, embracing a green partner with three faces and six arms; so that’s a Sambhogakaya form. You have this difference in the crowning process, and it’s extremely elaborate in terms of the commentaries and what everybody is crowned with.

In the full sadhana after this we get another set of seals, actually four more sets of seals. We add the six Buddhas on our chakras for body, and then we get the five vowels on other chakras for the speech, and then we get the four planets for mind, and then the syllable A at the tip of the jewel of our vajra for deep awareness. There are more things than just having something on our head: we’ll have all sorts of things inside our chakras as well. It’s like sealing it, making an impression of what family it is and so forth in the chakras, in terms of body, so we get the Buddhas; in terms of speech, so we get the vowels; in terms of mind, so we get the planets; and in terms of deep awareness, so we get another syllable at the tip of the gem at the end of your vajra. That’s not in here though in the shorter ones.

Then we have the consecration or brightening of body, speech and mind. Now, nobody said this is going to be easy, did they? This is analogous to the mother washing the infant when the infant is born, and it makes free from obscurations the three drops of body, speech and mind, which give rise to the occasions of waking, dreaming and deep sleep. 

Remember, we had these four drops:

• The drops associated with the waking state
• The dream state
• The deep sleep state
• And the fourth occasion, it’s called, the state of ecstatic bliss or climax.

Analogous to the mother washing an infant when the infant is born, what we want this to ripen into is washing away the obscurations of the winds that are associated with these drops, so that out of them we’ll be able to get the bodies of a Buddha. As I was explaining yesterday, with the clear light associated with each of these four drops, you get each of the four bodies of a Buddha.

In the womb, you didn’t have these working, because you didn’t have the various appearances happening of being awake, being dreaming and so on, whereas when you’re born then they start to function. That’s why you get this here at this point, when on the symbolic level of what it’s purifying we’ve come out of the womb, and we’re visible, and the senses are starting to work.

Now what’s happening is the drops are going to function in terms of the baby sleeping, waking up, dreaming, all these sorts of things. We have three families on the male and six on the female. The text says:

At our foreheads (father and mother), on top of a moon disc, from an OM, then a wheel, comes a white Vajra Body. 

That’s a white Buddha-figure with three faces, six arms, embracing a white consort. There’s a bit of a discussion as to what color their consorts are, because usually you have white deities embracing red ones, but here both the male and female are white for enlightening Body. Likewise, for Speech they’re both red, and for Mind they’re both black. I won’t go into the discussion of why they’re like that; there’s a big argument on it. 

At our throats, on top of a sun disc, from an AH, then a lotus, comes a red Vajra Speech. At our hearts, on top of a Rahu disc, from a HUM, then a vajra, comes a black Vajra Mind.

Here it seems to all be going at the same time, whereas in the longer ones you do them individually, like we had with the inner offering; it’s also done individually.

They emanate out replicas of themselves and of their ladies of discriminating awareness, filling the sky.

The ladies of discriminating awareness are the same color and with the same hand implements as themselves.

At my lady of discriminating awareness’s navel is a HOH, at her pubic region a SVA and at the crown of her head a HA. From these syllables as well are emanated hosts of deities of the Three Vajras. 

The Three Vajras are the Vajra Body, Speech and Mind.

 The (deities of the) Three Vajras teach the Dharma to limited beings needing to be tamed, then return once more and remain before me.

There are three things on the male that we want to purify: the three families of Vajra Body, Speech and Mind of method. This is referring to the elements of water, wind and space that come from semen. Remember, we had the six elements that people are made up of, three of them coming from the white bodhichitta side, the semen side, and three of them coming from the red bodhichitta, or the blood side. From the male side is water, wind and space; from the female we had earth, fire and deep awareness.

We want to purify all of these, and it’s not so terribly clear. It only says that you have it coming out of the OM, A, HUM, the three places in the male figure. In some commentaries it just says those three, and then it says the three lower spots in the navel, pubic and crown chakras of the Mother. That’s not enough, because it has to purify three in the male and six in the female. What has to be filled in is either you do the three in the male first, for body, speech and mind, these three drops; and then after it, you repeat it again and do it with the three, the OM, A, HUM, the body, speech and mind of the female, or as Kedrup Norzang Gyatso says, and His Holiness said if people follow that it’s much easier, you have the two happening at the same time.

So, when it says:

At our foreheads (father and mother), on top of a moon disc, from an OM…

It’s both your forehead and Vishvamata’s forehead, and they go out, and they come back in, and they’re going to give empowerment and dissolve back into the OM. That purifies the body drop: that’s the drop associated with the waking state in both you and the female. 

Then the two red deities come out and are generated at both your throat and her throat. They go out, they come back in, and you get empowerment; you make requests, offerings, empowerment and all of that; and they dissolve back in, and that purifies the speech drop in both you and her, which is the drop associated with the dreams. Then the same thing happens with the mind drop: you have black deities in both your heart and her heart; they go out, come back in, give empowerment, dissolve, and that purifies the deep sleep drop, which is the mind drop in both you and her. Then you go on to get the next three in her, which are associated with the navel, the pubic chakra and the crown chakra. And there you only have a syllable generated in them, you don’t have a Buddha-figure generated in them; but aside from that, it’s exactly the same. 

What it’s doing, these six chakras, first of all, are associated with the six elements, the three that come from the male and the three that come from the female, so you’re purifying them. You’re also purifying the drops, which are going to give rise to the bodies of a Buddha:

• The body drop, which is the waking drop in both you and her, is for the Nirmanakaya.
• The speech drop, or the drop of dreaming at the throat, is for Sambhogakaya, the speech.
• The drop at the heart, which is the mind drop, the drop associated with deep sleep, is the one from which, by working with that, you get the Dharmakaya, which is the mind of a Buddha.
• And then they say that it’s from working with the navel chakra, the pubic chakra and the crown chakra, these three, that one gets the deep awareness drop activated at the navel so that one gets the Nature Body of a Buddha (Svabhavakaya), which is the bliss body of a Buddha.

And that, although it doesn’t explain it too clearly in the commentaries, you can understand in terms of the whole process of tummo, which involves the fire at the navel, the wind at the pubic region and the bodhichitta at the crown chakra, so those three are involved there.

This is why you have the purification here of these six drops, this concentrating on the body, speech and mind: it’s to get the obscurations away from not only these chakras but to get them away from these four drops. The drops themselves, by the way, aren’t obscured; it’s the winds inside the drops that are obscured. But anyway, you purify these drops so that out of them you can get the four bodies of a Buddha. That’s basically what’s going on in this consecrating body, speech and mind thing. 

The rest of it is fairly straightforward. You make requests to them. The song here is:

“O Possessor of the Glorious One, Holder of the Three Vajras, by our meditating on the three unshatterable Vajras, make us Holders of the Three Vajras and cause us, right now, to remain uplifted and inspired.

The Three Vajras are Vajra Body, Speech and Mind, so it’s you, Kalachakra. Glorious One is the consort, who enhances the bliss, so that’s referring to Vishvamata. Make us Holders of the Three Vajras means make us have Vajra Body, Speech and Mind. To remain uplifted and inspired means to be brightened and for all the obscurations to be removed.

That’s the request to the main couple in the center. Because when the lights go out, let’s say from the body one at the crown chakra, they go out from Vajra Body, this white couple at the crown chakras of both you and her, and it brings back all these Vajra Body couples, white couples.

So, you get a main couple in the center, and then you get 10 in the directions around them: four in the cardinal directions, four in the intermediate directions, and one on top and one on bottom. The first song that you say: “O Possessor of the Glorious One, Holder of the Three Vajras,” is the request to the main couple in the center, and the second one: “O Buddhas abiding in the ten directions,” is to the ten couples who are around the main one in front of you. You make them these requests, you sing them the songs, and then they come, infuse you and dissolve into the ones at your own: the Body figures go into the ones at the forehead, then the Speech figures into the ones at the throat, then the Mind figures into the ones at the heart.

Then you get the next three happening for the navel, pubic and crown chakras. That happens all together, by the way, so you have the body, speech and mind deities dissolving into the navel, pubic and crown chakras, and it becomes of equal taste. 

That pretty much takes care of the supreme triumphant actions, although the next section, Being Mindful of the Purifications, is also in this section. Nevertheless, in the commentaries they speak of the 20 perfections here at this point.

The 20 perfections are something you’ll find in the long Kalachakra prayer. It speaks of the 20 perfections which are in this supreme victorious actions section, so the 20 aspects of this section of the sadhana, which is similar to how the child is developing after birth.

We have the child being born: that’s dissolving into the drops, coming back out and being generated. Then its senses and so forth starting to work in terms of the deep awareness wind going out – that’s getting Vajravega to come in and bring the wisdom beings – and then consecrating the body, speech and mind, so you get the drops and things starting to work to have the occasions of being awake, sleep, dreaming and so forth; all of this section has 20 parts that they talk about. 

According to Detri Rinpoche, the 20 perfections are as follows.

• You have the five arisings, which are the songs by the four ladies, Lochana and so forth, plus the one in common; so there are the five arisings, the five songs.
• Then there are the five arisings, in which you arise after that. All the deities in the womb arise as drops, then seed syllables, then implements, then the full body of each main figure, and then each of them being embraced by a consort. So, there are these five arisings as well, which makes ten.
• Then you have the five of the deep awareness, beings hooking, entering, binding, pleasing and making the deep awareness beings be of one taste with the JAH HUM BAM HOH HI. That’s the third set of five.
• And the fourth set of five is the empowerment and the four crown ornaments of body, speech, mind and deep awareness. Those were the ones that were left out here: the crown of the Buddhas, the chakras, the letters and so forth.

That’s in Detri Rinpoche’s commentary, but in the prayer itself it lists it slightly differently. It omits this last one, the empowerment and the four crown ornaments, and has instead the five forceful Buddha-figures themselves who are involved with JAH HUM BAM HOH HI – those five forceful Buddha-figures that I mentioned before. And if we do it that way, it’s better for the nine-deity practice, because the empowerment and four crown ornament parts don’t come into the abbreviated one in any case.

Thus, there are several ways of saying what the 20 are. Anyway, it’s just a classification scheme and when you read the long prayer, which is at the end of the Kalachakra six-session guru-yoga, reference is made to it, so you’ll have some idea of what it’s talking about. 

Now we come to the most obscure part of the sadhana in terms of the language, and that is called Being Mindful of the Purifications. This is really tough. These verses come out of, I believe, the Abridged Tantra, and they’re quite obscure.

According to Mipam – a Nyingma author from the 19th century who wrote a big commentary on Kalachakra – kala in Kalachakra means time, and time here is in the sense of being beyond truly existent time. It’s referring to the unchanging blissful awareness of voidness, because that’s beyond any sort of truly existent time, being an awareness of voidness beyond true existence. And chakra, wheel or circle, is the play of this, in terms of its appearance as devoid form. So, kala, time, can refer to the unchanging bliss; and chakra, the wheel, is the devoid form that’s the appearance of that. 

Our verse starts:

Through the purification of time

That’s one level of how you take kala and chakra. Time here is kala, and that’s referring to the outer and inner periods of time, which are the periods of the 12 zodiac signs on the external level, so it’s the periods of the sun; and on an inner level it’s the 12 shifts, so it’s the periods of the breath. So:

Through the purification of time with its sixteen “ruler of humanity” (chakras and channels) and its divisions of years, months and the rest, I become a glorious Holder of the Vajras,

Holder of the Vajras is Vajradhara. The divisions, that’s the word chakra, mean the above time periods, the 12 time periods being made into years and so on. This is according to Detri Rinpoche’s commentary: he comments on it as being the purification of time and the divisions of years and months. He’s saying that kala, the time, are the periods, and the divisions are in terms of putting those together, these 12 divisions into years and so.

(Through) the purification of (the cycles), with their being under the influence of individual solar days and the twelve “sun” (periods of each day), Vishvamata (the Mother of Diversity, arises) as a bodily aspect of enlightening mind, which isn’t anything (that rides on impure energy-winds).

Sun here is referring to chakra, and this is the cycles of the sun during the day. And enlightening mind of the sun is referring to this chakra, as we were saying in Mipham’s commentary: these cycles arising in the form of a Buddha-figure, so being an aspect of the enlightening mind, being an appearance of the enlightening mind, of the sun. The sun is the play of unchanging bliss, so the play of these cycles. An aspect of it is arising in the form of a Buddha-figure: that’s what the consort is.

“Which isn’t” is referring to something which is not riding on the impure winds. She is not made out of impure winds but just is the appearance aspect of the mind. The individual solar days, that’s the kala of Kalachakra. The chakra was the sun, and the individual solar days is the kala. The Mother of Diversity is its total purification. She is the purification of what? Kala: the individual solar days, that’s the unchanging bliss and so on; and the sun itself, which is the cycles of the sun during the day. So, it’s its play arising in the form of a Buddha-figure, which is the appearance of that mind, and which is something “which isn’t,” namely it’s something which is not riding on the impure winds. That’s basically what that line means; it’s got to be the most obscure and difficult line in the entire sadhana, so be satisfied if you have a basic idea of what it’s talking about.

Then:

Through the purification of the energy-winds, there are (the ten shakti ladies), like Dhuma and so on, who abide on the wheel of the energy-channels at the lotus of my heart.

As I was saying, the ten powerful ladies around the heart are the purification of the ten energy-winds. 

Through (the purification of the four) disturbing emotions, there are Rudra, together with his wife,

Remember, we were saying that you’re standing on two deities. One is the Forceful One, that’s Rudra; and the other is the Demonic One, that’s Mara. “Through that of them,” which is through the purification of them, Rudra is the disturbing attitudes: these are four disturbing attitudes, the attitudes of desire, anger, closed-mindedness and pride. So, there’s the purification of that: you are standing on Rudra together with his wife, and:

and the party of demonic Mara (and his wife) pressed under my feet, the Ruler of the All-Pervasive.

The Ruler of the All-Pervasive is the ruler of voidness, or bliss that pervades everywhere. Mara is the one who is underneath your other foot, and this is the purification of the four maras, and you have a very interesting presentation of the four maras in Kalachakra. 

The four maras here are in the nature of the propensities of the obscurations of sentient beings’ body, speech, mind and their unawareness. The four maras are:

• The mara of the aggregates, and that’s the obscurations of body, because the aggregates are associated with the body.
• The mara of disturbing attitudes, the second mara, is interpreted here as being the obscurations of speech, and the disturbing attitudes are associated with the winds that they ride on, and speech is with the winds.
• The mara of the Lord of Death is the obscurations of the mind, because the Lord of Death gets us down to clear light mind.
• And the mara of the children of the gods, or the sons of the gods, is the mara or the interference that comes from the influence of non-Buddhist ignorance, it says, and this is referring to words from the non-Buddhists, such as that it’s because of the stars that you get positive and negative qualities, happiness and suffering. 

In other words, you have a whole presentation of astrology in Kalachakra, but it’s refuting the position of the Hindu astrology system that all the interpretations are being actually caused by the stars, that the stars are actual deities and they’re causing you to be like this or like that or things to work out well or not to work out well.

In the Buddhist position, those aren’t the things that are causing it. They indicate the general pattern, but in fact what’s causing things is your karma. And karma from a general point of view will bring about the configuration of the stars that you’ll be born under, and from an individual point of view will bring about the type of personality or the type of fortune that one has, but it’s not that the stars are up there causing you, as deities, to have good fortune or bad fortune. But it’s through that unawareness of hearing non-Buddhist words like that, that one becomes very superstitious and then no longer believes in cause and effect or karma and things like that. This is the mara of the son of the gods. 

Also, another thing would be that there’s a whole system of prognostication of vowels. You remember, I talked about this whole side of astrology called “arising from the vowels,” which is: each day of the month has a certain vowel that it’s associated with, and you can correlate that, let’s say in a battle, with the first vowel of the name of your general and the vowel of the name of the opposite side’s general, and then depending on also what direction the battle is starting from, which also will have a vowel associated with it, you can predict who’s going to win the battle or not win the battle. 

It’s incredible, the material that comes out of Kalachakra. But anyway, that you also get in the Hindu side as well, because this material is held in common with the Hindu side of what was going on in India at that time. And in the Hindu side, again they would say that it’s actually being caused by these deities, or these vowels, or things like that; whereas from the Buddhist side it’s saying, “No, that’s an indication of how you can read what’s going on, but it’s not caused by it. It’s caused by dependent arising, karma and so on.” 

Even if it’s from the kindness of the gods that things are happening, it’s based on past constructive actions. Even if the gods are influencing things, they themselves would be influenced in terms of doing positive things, doing constructive actions that would also please the gods. It’s not that they’re causing us to have good fortune by means of negative things like animal and human sacrifice. Another big thing that the Kalachakra system tried to get rid is the animal and human sacrifice that was going on in some of the non-Buddhist systems before this.

Thus, there’s this big discussion of the four maras as correlating to the obscurations of body, speech, mind and the unawareness that one would get from this non-Buddhist interpretation of astrology and the gods. And Kalachakra, by standing on this, is purifying not only the winds that would go in the right and left channels, which is symbolized by standing on these two deities, but also the one side purifies the four disturbing attitudes, and the other side purifies the four maras. 

Then, just to finish off the next two verses here:

Through (the purification of the 24 material) classes of phenomena (asserted by Samkhya) there are my (24) weapons as the principal figure.

The classes of phenomena are referring to the 24 factors of the Samkhya system. There’s no time to go into great detail about the Samkhya system, but you also get Hindu tantra, Hindu yoga and all these things, which have a lot of similar features to what you find here in the Buddhist tantra. And in order to be able to encourage them to enter into the path and to speak a common language with them, you have a lot of usage of the terms of the three gunas, these qualities of rajas, tamas and sattva, which you get so much in the Hindu system.

Also, you get here the 24 factors from the Samkhya system, which are the five elemental sources, the five sensors, the five objects of the senses, the six action organs and then what’s called manas, which is the mind, mati, which is intellect, and ahamkara, which is the I-making faculty. It’s not necessary to go into detail what they are, but these are 24 material things in the Samkhya system. These are all matter. Then in the Samkhya system you have a 25th factor, purusha or the self, which is the conscious factor. His 24 weapons are on one level being purification of the 24 aspects of matter as described in the Samkhya system. 

And:

And through (the purification) of the (six) elemental sources that are under the influence of the (three) universal constituents of natural matter there are my (six) external ornamental seals.

The sources are referring to the six sets of cognitive sources of the eye and so forth. Each set of cognitive sources as referring to the consciousness, the sensor and the object. These are in terms of the natural qualities of the three gunas, which are tamas, rajas and sattva, being correlated to these cognitive sources of the consciousness, object and sensor. 

In terms of that, you have the six sets of the external seals, which are the six sets of jewelry that Kalachakra is wearing. It’s not so clear that this is in fact the case, but this is what it seems to be from the commentaries; it doesn’t spell it out. Because in the commentary it just says “the six sources of consciousness, etc.” That’s why I’m elaborating that: it seems to refer to the consciousness, sensor and object of the six cognitive faculties of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind. The six external mudras, the seals, are these six sets of jewelry that they’re the purification of: 

• The right and left earrings are one
• The vajra skirt and throat necklace are two
• The bracelets and anklets are three
• The crown jewel and the ashes that are smeared on the body are four
• The crescent moon on the hair and the ear tassels are five
• And the right and left shoulder brahmin threads are the sixth.

These also purify the six far-reaching attitudes (six perfections).

Then it says:

Through (the purification of the obscurations of the four occasions) there are (my four) Vajras as the (four) internal ornamental seals (of elephant-skin cloak and so on) of (Vajravega) abiding perfectly on top of the moon at my heart as a Holder of the Vajras. 

This is really very obscure also. Vajras refer to the separation from obscurations of the four occasions of waking, dreaming, sleep and ecstasy; and their purity is vajra body, speech, mind and deep awareness. Through vajra body, speech and mind, which is purified from the four drops, there are my internal seals. 

The internal seals are the set of four: 

• The tiger skin wraparound, around the waist
• The long necklace of heads from 100 mara families
• The five skulls of the five colors of families on each head
• The elephant-skin cloak that he holds in his extra set of two arms.

These four are things which are worn by Vajravega; they’re not worn by Kalachakra. Kalachakra is the peaceful aspect, and Vajravega is the forceful aspect. 

He has an extra 25th and 26th arms: it’s black on the right and yellow on the left, holding an elephant-skin cloak. These four are the other four far-reaching attitudes. We had the six external seals that are the six far-reaching attitudes, and then these four are the other four far-reaching attitudes, making the ten far-reaching attitudes.

If you multiply it out, the six far-reaching attitudes were the six sets of pairs of jewelry, which makes 12; 12 plus these four makes 16; and that purifies the 16 types of voidness that you find in Chandrakirti’s discussion of the 16 voidnesses in his Engaging in Madhyamaka.

When it says that these are abiding perfectly on top of the moon at my heart, that’s very obscure, and it isn’t explained in the commentary, but my guess is that these are the inner seals in the sense that they’re the seals of Vajravega. They’re the things that he wears. Vajravega is the discriminating awareness and is symbolized as being at the heart; that’s where Vajravega is generated from. I imagine, it’s my guess as I say, that “abiding perfectly on top of the moon at my heart” is referring to the fact of Vajravega at the heart, and that these internal seals are referring to him. As I say, these verses are the most obscure in the entire text.

After you’ve read this section of Being Mindful of the Purifications (and in the full sadhana there are lots of verses; this is a long section describing in equally obscure terms the purifications involved with all the figures in the mandala and all the parts of the mandala), once you’ve done that, then it’s here in the sadhana that you put the emphasis on building up the visualization and overcoming ordinary appearances and clinging. So, you try to get the visualization of the whole thing stable before you go on to the next parts which are the drop yoga and the subtle yoga.