Kalachakra Sadhana: The Supreme Triumphant Mandala

We’re always speaking about six elemental sources here. We speak either of five or six elements; the sixth element is the element of deep awareness, and deep awareness as an elemental source is defined as – here’s a good mouthful – “the simultaneously arising deep awareness, which, whatever it is aimed at, that object, when purified of mental obscurations, is the sphere encompassing all, or voidness.” It’s a very convoluted definition, hard to put into nice English.

When it talks about things coming from the element of deep awareness, it’s referring to either voidness or the deep awareness of voidness, and within that sphere, on an external level, you have the atoms of empty space, as we discussed before. Then from the collective karma of sentient beings within that, you have wind atoms that previously abided separately come together, and you get the element mandalas of wind, fire, water, earth, Mount Meru and so forth, as we have here in the generation of the mandala. Externally, we would get from space the mandalas of wind, fire, water, earth, Mount Meru and so forth. This is the arising of the elements on the outer level. 

We also have on an internal level an analogy of this with both the mother and with the individual. In other words, we have the various elements in the mother’s womb arising, which then support the development of the fetus. Likewise, we have in birth the development of the elements of the body of the fetus itself, which are all going to be analogous here. On the generation stage then, in analogy to the outer and inner arising of elements, we get the arising of these elements here of the mandalas. It says:

Within the origin of all phenomena, the endless sphere of space,

We don’t have a reality source here, as we have in a lot of the other practices. We don’t have a triangular upside-down pyramid shaped anything. It’s just space as a general thing.

from YAM comes a round cylinder of wind, black, (marked in the center) with the shape of a bow,

When it says, “With the shape of a bow,” that doesn’t mean that it’s shaped like a bow. It means that it’s circular, and it’s marked in the center by the shape of a bow. All of these are circular in the visualization, the same as it is in the world mandala, and all of them are 50,000 ancient miles deep.

It’s marked in the center with the shape of a bow; it’s circular. 

400,000 ancient miles in breadth

That’s its diameter. It’s 50,000 deep. All of them are 50,000 deep. 

and marked with victory banners. 

Each of these is in between crossed vajras, which is like a paper wrapping on top and on bottom.

On top of it, from RAM, comes a round cylinder of fire, red, with a triangle,

Again, it means it’s circular but is marked in the center with a triangle. 

300,000 ancient miles in breadth and marked with the auspicious (swastika sign). 

The auspicious is a swastika; it’s called the auspicious sign. Swastika is the Sanskrit word meaning auspicious: sva-asti-ka, it comes from literally. Sva is su, means good; asti is “to be”; and ka makes it a general noun. That’s the derivation of the word swastika, which is auspicious, although it wasn’t terribly auspicious for the people who used it in Europe. Then it goes on. There isn’t really time for me to read this whole thing to you, but it’s quite straightforward, and I assume that you’ve read this already before coming here. 

Now, you have all these things: within space, you have wind, fire, water, earth. These are like round plastic containers of progressively smaller sizes, sitting on top of each other, on the lid of each other, going up. Then you have Mount Meru, which is also round, smaller on the bottom, larger on the top; and on top of that, a variegated lotus, which is our usual variegated lotus with petals of the different colors; and on top of it, you have a moon.

I explained what an aspirant suffix-colon is: those are the two dots at the end of a word that sometimes is transliterated as “h” with a dot under it. And a nasal suffix-dot is a dot that goes on top of something. And then a nada sonorous squiggle: nada is the word that’s used even in Tibetan, and it means sound. It refers to the little squiggle that’s on top of the dot – you get the symbolic discs of Rahu and Kalagni, the Growler and Fire of Time eclipsing planets. Those are the planets involved in eclipsing the sun. 

All of these merge into one, from which comes the syllable HKSHMLVRYAM.

Now, I’ve written it this way because that’s the way that it’s written both in Sanskrit and Tibetan. It’s written in this acrostic. I’m sure you’re familiar with the symbol that’s used for Kalachakra: that is an acrostic of these letters. To try to symbolize that in English, I’ve done it here with this conglomeration of the letters. All their seed syllables combine, from these various elements, Mount Meru and so forth, into what’s called this powerful ten-part acrostic mantra, and then we generate them again from it.

The parts of this mantra are all these elements. It’s made up of ten things. The first one is space. Space is the vowel A, which is inherent in all these syllables. You don’t actually write the vowel A in Sanskrit or Tibetan. That’s the space element. Then the wind element is the YA. Going backwards, now you see: HKSHMLVRYAM. It helps if you’re Czech or Polish to pronounce that! The Y at the end is for wind. Then the R is RA for fire; it’s the fire seed syllable. The V is for the VA of water element. And the L, the LA, is for the earth element. It comes from the seed syllables; it’s the first letter of the seed syllable. The MA is for Mount Meru. The lotus is from the KSHA; we had the center: “From KSHAM comes a variegated lotus.” The moon is HA; that’s the first letter, H. Then the sun is the colon; we had the suffix-colon dot. The suffix-colon is usually of KSHA. KSHA most of the time is spelt with this KSH letter, and then A, and then the colon at the end. So, the colon that they’re referring to here, which doesn’t appear separate in the mantra, is the colon from KSHA. Then Rahu and Kalagni count as one, and they are the dot and squiggle of the HUM, the M at the end of this ten-part acrostic. 

The acrostic is made of the letters of the seed syllables of all these elements, and it coming together is showing that everything is interrelated. The first time, what it is doing is purifying the phenomena of the mother. You get the generation of the elements, and then the elements all come together into the acrostic syllable, and then the elements come back out again. So, the first time it is purifying the elements in the things within the mother. You remember, we had the chakras all correlated to the elements:

• The space element is her crown chakra
• The wind element is her forehead chakra
• The fire element is the throat chakra
• The water element is the heart chakra
• The earth element is the navel chakra
• Mount Meru is the pubic chakra, in the pubic region
• Her secret lotus (that’s referring to her womb) is the lotus on top of Mount Meru.

And then the gathering of these three:

• The left, right and central channels there at the lotus (the womb) are the moon, which is the left channel.
• The right channel is the sun.
• The central channel is Rahu and Kalagni.

Rahu is usually the name that is given to the upper part of the central channel, and Kalagni is the name that is given to the bottom part of the central channel.

These various elements are standing for, on one level, the elements in the universe; on another level, they’re standing for the elements, meaning the chakras and the channels, within the mother. And then they combine together to show that they’re all integrated in one mental continuum of the mother; they’re interdependent.

Then the second time that they’re generated out of that, it’s analogous to the practitioner’s own body. Because our own body also has these six chakras and the lotus. Here the lotus is referring to the lotus at the navel chakra, and the right, left and central channels that meet there; and it ripens into the complete stage where we get a devoid form at the lotus of the navel, where the three channels meet.

We want to have everything ripen into something on the complete stage. On the complete stage, what we want to get is the devoid form. The devoid form arises at the navel chakra, through the process of stacking the drops with these six chakras and the blisses with the channels. By meditating like this, you can get the entire Kalachakra teaching in this ten-syllable mantra, Serkong Rinpoche used to say. With the combination of these things, it’s analogous to the external world; to the mother’s body; to the practitioner’s own body, with his chakras and so forth; and will ripen into the complete stage of having a devoid form arise, similar to a universe being born, similar to a child being born. Where will it arise? At the navel, where the three channels meet, and it involves the stacking of the drops through the chakras. All of this is symbolic of everything that’s involved in that process. 

Then it says, to go on with the imagery:

…on top of which from HUM comes a vajra tent.

The vajra tent on this, which has a lotus – because the vajra tent is on the lotus of the thing – is analogous to the vajra of the father being in the lotus of the womb of the mother. Then the meditation on the inconceivable palace that’s generated below is analogous to the womb. The palace itself is analogous to the mother’s womb. Then in it, on the various seats and so forth, you’re going to get a moon and a sun marked with vowels and consonants.

Above this central moon, sun, Rahu and Kalagni, comes a disc of a moon, marked with 32 vowels resting on this moon, in the nature of the 32 excellent signs – mirror-like deep awareness. 

You’re going to get a moon marked with vowels and a sun marked with consonants, and that’s the gathering of the sperm and blood speck in the mother’s womb. And then in it, a white syllable HUM, which is like a moon, is the entering of the bardo being’s clear light mind into the sperm and egg. The black syllable HI, which is with it, is the wind of the consciousness of the bardo being, the subtle energy-wind. 

So, inside the building itself on the central disc, on the central seats, you have a moon with vowels, a sun with consonants, a white syllable HUM and a black syllable HI. The moon and sun are the sperm and egg, the white syllable HUM is the consciousness of the bardo being, the black syllable HI is the energy-wind of the bardo being. And then these mix into one, which becomes a syllable HUM, and that’s analogous to the first forming of the body in the mother’s womb from sperm, blood or egg, consciousness and wind. It’s similar to what we want on the complete stage, and also similar to the basis we want to purify so that we can get the result out of all of this. 

Now, speaking in terms of the general structure of the rest of the sadhana: the completion of the fetus’s body inside the womb is this whole thing of the supreme triumphant mandala, that section. The supreme triumphant mandala is analogous to the completion of the body in the womb. Then the next of the four parts, the supreme triumphant actions, is analogous to birth and coming into one’s own power or growing up. Then the drop yoga is analogous to the increasing of the power of bodhichitta; in other words, the power of white bodhichitta or semen increasing when one gets to be 16. Then the subtle yoga is analogous with having the complete bliss at the end of having reached 16 years of age. I’m just giving the general structure of what the four main parts of the sadhana are involved in.

• The first one is the development of the body in the womb.
• The second one is being born and growing up as a child.
• The third one is having the power of the white bodhichitta reach its full potency through the process of getting to be 16 years old.
• The last one is when the power of that for generating bliss is complete.

That’s your basic analogy in terms of the internal one.

The wind mandala is 400,000 ancient miles wide, the water one is 200,000, and the earth is 100,000. Likewise, similar to that, the base line of the body mandala from the center to the walls (the body mandala is the ground floor) is four armspans, the speech one is two armspans, and the mind one is one armspan. The proportions of the elements in the universe – that’s not counting the fire one, but the wind, water and earth mandalas – are the same proportions as the elements underneath the palace, and the same proportions as the major structures within the palace. Likewise, in the human being we have the same proportions in the distances between: half of the distance between the center of the body and the fingertip is the distance between the navel and the throat; half of that is the distance from nipple to nipple. Thus, the proportions within the body are the same; you get the proportions, for instance, for drawing deities, all of that comes out of this as well. That’s according to Detri Rinpoche. 

According to Kedrup Norzang Gyatso, the proportion from the pubic chakra to the crown chakra, half of that, corresponds to the body mandala, and half of that is the distance between the navel chakra and the throat chakra; that’s for the speech mandala. And half of that is halfway from the heart to the navel chakra up to halfway between the heart and the throat chakra. If you actually take the time out to measure it on your body, you’ll find that these proportions are correct. The mind one is the distance from the heart to the shoulder cap, the speech one is from the heart to the elbow, and the body one is from the heart to the fingertip. You’ll find that the proportions for that work out to be correct as well. So, everything is analogous. Quite mind blowing actually.

Now, for the nine-deity sadhana that we’re doing here, we visualize the whole mind mandala. You might wonder which mandala do you actually visualize? I asked His Holiness about that, and he said that you do the whole mind-mandala building visualization, but you should note that if it’s the mind mandala alone, then in the actual mind mandala practice you have five-layered walls, whereas here in the nine-deity practice it says that you have three-layered walls. It says it has walls that are three layers thick from the outside in order black, red and white. That’s under the influence of it being the full body, speech and mind mandala, in which the mind mandala has three-layered walls.

In other words, you have two versions of the full sadhana. One is when you have the entire building, the body, speech and mind, in which case the walls of the body and speech one have five layers, and the walls of the mind one have three layers. Or if you do just the mind mandala by itself without the bottom ones, then the mind mandala itself, its walls, instead of having three layers, have five layers. Here, where it has the nine deities, it says that you have three-layered walls. That’s under the influence of it in fact being abbreviated from the entire body, speech and mind one. So, you can either visualize the entire body, speech and mind mandala with the rest of the seats being empty and just the nine deities here, because that’s what we’re practicing, in which case it’s as it says here: the walls are three layers thick (that’s referring to the mind-mandala walls). Or if you just do it like a mind-mandala one, then you should note that in the mind mandala, it has five-layered walls, so you would change it to being five-layered walls.

I won’t go into the description of the mandala; there’s no time. I did do quite a bit of description of that both here last year and also at the Kalachakra initiation in Switzerland, so you can pick it up from there. 

Then we have at the bottom of that thing, in the middle of it:

In the middle of it, from OM comes a lotus, green, with eight petals, on the seed-head of which, from AM come the discs of a moon, from AH of a sun, and from A of a Rahu and Kalagni.

The symbolism of this is an eclipse on the external level, when you have Rahu and Kalagni – the north and south nodes of the moon. There’s no time to go into an astronomical explanation of that, but anyway an eclipse of the sun or moon involves a configuration in which you have some of these being conjunct and some of these being in opposition. But anyway, the symbolism is of the eclipse.

And internally, it’s in terms of the channels. As I said before, you have the channels internally at the lotus of the navel: you have the right and left channels, which are the sun and moon, and the central channel, which is Rahu and Kalagni. On the alternative level, on the generation stage there’s this visualization, and on the complete stage the eclipse is in terms of the movement of the winds in the sun and moon channels. The sun and the moon channels are the right and left channels. You want to eclipse them, like you would have an eclipse on the external level, in the sense of having them stop going in the right and left channel and go instead into the central channel, which is called the Rahu and Kalagni channel. The symbolism of having the four discs that you’re standing on ripens into the complete stage of actually eclipsing – it purifies the external eclipses and purifies the internal channels being like that. And on the alternative level what you want it to ripen into is to have an eclipsing of the winds that are in the right and left channels, or the sun and moon channels, and have them go into the central channel, which is Rahu and Kalagni.

That’s the generation of the building. Now the generation of the supporting deities: you have first the generation of the main father and mother through what’s called the five prior purifications ahead; then the emanation of the deities of the mandala from her womb; and then in that emanated mandala, conferring in this mandala the empowerment of compassion to limited beings; and then assuming extremely pure self-esteem. You’ll find these section titles here; you don’t have to copy them down again.

The first is generating the main couple through the five practices that bring purification ahead. That’s abhisambodhi in Sanskrit and ngon-jong nga in Tibetan; a very elusive concept. What this is referring to is, on one level you have the visualization. It says:

Above this central moon, sun, Rahu and Kalagni, comes a disc of a moon, marked with 32 vowels resting on this moon, in the nature of the 32 – mirror-like deep awareness. 

Excellent signs are the major signs. 

What you’re getting is five practices or visualizations that are going to bring purification, bring what we want to attain, ahead. It aims for it ahead. I can’t think of any better way to put it in English except for this Translationese English of “bringing it ahead.” As I explained, the moon with the vowels, the sun with the consonants, the HUM and the HI are the sperm, blood, consciousness and wind of the bardo: sperm and blood of the mother and father, consciousness and wind of the bardo that come together to make the body. On the complete stage, it’s the white and red bodhichittas, and the consciousness and winds being held at the navel from which you make the devoid form. By meditating on these things, it brings these accomplishments ahead. That’s on the appearance side, or method side. And on the wisdom side, you have the five types of deep awareness. 

Now, as for the five types of deep awareness, you want to get an omniscient mind of a Buddha, and the omniscient mind of a Buddha is involved with having deep awareness of the two levels of truth at the same time. This has five aspects to it, which perhaps you’re familiar with, in terms of:

• Mirror-like deep awareness, which is the awareness to just reflect things
• Equalizing deep awareness to see the equality of things, like everyone in this room is equally a human being
• Individualizing deep awareness to be able to identify individuals
• Accomplishing deep awareness, the awareness to be able to accomplish things, to do things
• Awareness of dharmadhatu, it’s called, the sphere encompassing everything, which is the awareness of the nature of things, either conventional or deepest natures.

What you want to do with these five prior purifications ahead is not only to have a visualization of something, which on an appearance side is going to ripen into what we want to accomplish in terms of the devoid form, but also something that will ripen on the wisdom side into getting this omniscient awareness of a Buddha. So, correlated with each of these is one of these five types of deep awareness. Each of these deep awarenesses is associated with one of the five dhyani Buddhas as well; and each of those dhyani Buddhas and deep awarenesses is associated with one of the five aggregates. We have a grand mixture of a lot of things, because by doing this we have it ripening into something: it’s similar to getting a body, with the five aggregates; it’s also similar to getting a devoid form, or a Form Body of a Buddha, with the five Buddha-families, so the five dhyani Buddhas; and it’s also similar to getting an omniscient mind of a Buddha, having the five types of deep awareness. It says:

a moon, marked with 32 vowels

That’s mirror-like deep awareness.

Beneath that comes a disc of a sun, marked with 80 consonants resting on this sun, in the nature of the 80 exemplary features – equalizing deep awareness. 

The moon here we said is the semen. The semen and the moon are the form aggregate; that brings about the form aggregate; and it’s mirror-like deep awareness and Vairochana. When you’re meditating on it, when it mentions mirror-like deep awareness, you would try to have some sort of feeling of mirror-like deep awareness, of awareness that’s just reflecting everything, and that will ripen into being able to get an actual purified type of deep awareness. You think of the image of the appearance, and then you also try to get a feeling of this mirror-like deep awareness. So, the semen and the moon are giving rise to the form aggregate, and they are equal to mirror-like deep awareness and Vairochana.

Then secondly, the sun and the blood speck give rise to the feeling aggregate, and those are equal to equalizing deep awareness and Ratnasambhava. You try to get an awareness of the equality of things: everybody has equally been my mother, or everybody equally has a right to be happy and not to have suffering, or whatever. 

Then the bardo consciousness and the white HUM are the distinguishing aggregate, and that would be individualizing deep awareness and Amitabha. The bardo consciousness and the white HUM, which is symbolizing it, would be giving rise to the distinguishing aggregate, the individualizing deep awareness and Amitabha.

Then the wind of the bardo consciousness and the black HI, which symbolizes it, give rise to the aggregate of other affecting variables, the aggregate which is the catch-all bag for everything else, and that gives rise to the deep awareness to accomplish things and Amoghasiddhi.

Then these mixing into one and having the syllable HUM, it never says what the color of that is in any of the commentaries or texts. My suspicion is that it’s green, for Akshobhya, but that’s not confirmed by any commentary so it’s just a guess. The mixing into one and the syllable HUM give rise to the consciousness aggregate, and it’s equal to the deep awareness of the nature encompassing all and Akshobhya.

When it mentions the deep awareness of the individuality of things, you try to get some feeling of the deep awareness of the individuality of things: that this is a microphone, this is Andy, this is Sean, this is David, etc. – that type of individual awareness. And then the deep awareness to accomplish tasks, that would be “I’m going to become enlightened, I’m going to go to the store,” or whatever. And then the deep awareness of the sphere of the reality of things, to try to have some awareness of the conventional nature and the deepest nature of things. 

All of this ripens as causes for having a complete body of either five aggregates, or the five deep awarenesses, or the five Buddha-families, and so forth. This also is a very important part of any sadhana. Then out of that, you become the full Buddha-figure. 

At the time of the basis, what makes us get a samsara rebirth is the karma generated under the influence of the ignorance of grasping for true existence. The obtaining cause, the main cause, is the grasping for true existence. And the simultaneously arising condition that goes with it is the movement each day of these 21,600 winds.

The yogi, by tapping into the vital points of the subtle body with the complete stage practice, gradually stops the coursing of these compulsive winds of karma, the 21,600 that go through the channels in the course of the day, and by the stages of making 21,600 moments of unchanging bliss be complete on the basis of stacking the 21,600 drops, through that process becomes a Kalachakra.

To ripen into such a complete stage, what we do here is we meditate on all aspects of the winds that go through 12 periods or shifts and all the channels through which they course as appearing as this or that part of the Kalachakra Buddha-figure, and also as the figures of the mandala. All these parts are analogous also to the external coursing of the time. Since we want to stop the winds that go through all these channels in the body, all these figures and everything are analogous to the channels in the body and the parts of the body, and having them now as Buddha-figures ripens into them having a pure form, so that one can work with them in the complete stage and get rid of the energy-winds flowing through them.

Why don’t I read through the rest of this quickly, because our time is going very quickly, about the symbolism of the deity?

By the way, just very briefly, where it says “fire flower-arrows,” one of the things that he’s holding is fire that is the number three. Because in the mathematics you have codenames for the numbers. All the mathematical texts are written like if we had in the West, for instance, little pigs. Everybody knows that there are three little pigs, so if you write “little pigs,” that’s the number three; and if you write “dwarves,” that’s the number seven because there are seven dwarves; and “reindeer” would be the number for eight because there are eight reindeer of Santa Claus, and so on. You can do it with Partridge in a Pear Tree and this whole bit. That’s the way the mathematics texts and astronomy texts are written in Sanskrit. They’re all written without any numbers in them whatsoever; they’re all written with this “little pigs” and “reindeer” and “dwarves,” the Sanskrit equivalents for them!

So, fire is the codename for the number three. Mind you, there’s more than one for each number. For some of them, there are as many as six or eight different ones, so it becomes quite complex to read any of these mathematical texts. But it’s very good because it ensures that there won’t be any mistakes in copying things, because it’s very easy to make a mistake in copying numbers. But if you’re writing dwarves or reindeer, there’s less chance of there being a mistake; so it’s not as outrageous as one might think. Thus, when it says he’s holding fire arrows, it’s three arrows.

At death, the consciousness, the semen and blood speck separate. The semen goes down, and the blood comes up and out of the nose, and the consciousness goes to the bardo. To ripen into having the blood, which is supported in the right channel, drawn down and stabilized at the bottom – in other words, stacked from the top to the bottom – the right leg is red and outstretched to let it flow down. In other words, you want to make the blood not go out of the nose when you die, and to make it stack from the top going down, which is the way that the red bodhichitta is stacked, the symbolism for that is that the right leg is red and outstretched; outstretched in the sense that then it allows something to flow down. 

And to make the white bodhichitta not go out of the bottom orifice when you die but rather to be stacked up, and to ripen into having it stacked up when you stack the 21,600 white drops, then the left leg is white and is bent. It’s bent signifying that you’re hooking the white bodhichitta back up.

Then to have the consciousness generated in the 21,600 moments of unchanging great bliss through being in the central channel, the body is blue, which is like the color of deep awareness.

He’s standing on two deities, which is stopping the coursing of the karmic winds in the right and left channels and getting them to enter the central channel. To get those winds to go into the central channel, he’s standing on the moon, sun, Rahu and Kalagni discs, with that whole imagery of the eclipse. Also, the right leg being red, the left white, and the body blue, symbolizes the right, left and central channels. 

Externally, just as the 12 time periods of the zodiac are divided into two when the sun is in the southern or northern declination (in other words, when it’s in the north or southern part of the sky), and internally all breaths in the 12 channels are in terms of coursing through either the right or the left channel, so similarly you have two legs. 

Just as externally the 12 time periods are in three groups of four each, and internally the 12 shifts are in three groups of four each, and also in analogy with the right, left and central channels, that’s three, in the same way we have the three groups of four: the three groups of the time periods, the three groups of the shifts; the right, left and central channels – that’s three; also, the three types of days that are used in astrological calculations, namely zodiac days, solar days and lunar days; and in analogy to that and to purify all of that, he has three necks. Three necks mean that he has just one neck basically, but it’s in three portions, and the central portion is black, the right one is red, and the left one is white. 

Analogous to all the time periods externally and internally being in four groups of three and also corresponding to the four sides of Mount Meru, which have the same colors as it, you have the four faces. The four faces are the same colors as the colors of the sides of Mount Meru.

In analogy with the external time being in six seasons, we have spring season, hot season, summer, fall, early and late winter, and also six periods of day and night, and also the internal shifts of the breath being in six pairs, you have the six collarbones. For the 12 months and the 12 shifts, you have 12 shoulders. At the end of each collarbone, you have two shoulders; at the end of each shoulder, you have two arms. So, it works like that; the arms are presented horizontally.

For the 24 black and white phases – that’s the waxing and waning phases of the moon – of the 12 months (you have 24 moon phases in a year), and likewise the 24 half-shifts of the breath, you have the 24 arms. In analogy to the 360 zodiac days, and internally the 360 periods of 60 breaths, and also the 360 bones and joints, you have 24 hands with 5 fingers each, and each finger has three joints; so, 24 times 5 times 3 makes 360 finger joints. These are for the 360 days in a year or 360 periods of 60 breaths each in the day.

The outside of the thumb is yellow: that’s for earth; of the first fingers are white: that’s for water; the middle finger is red for fire; the fourth finger is black for wind; and the fifth finger, the little finger, is green, and that’s for space. This is purifying the elements. Then the inside of the fingers: the first joint, by the palm, is black; the middle joint is red; and the tip is white. This is for either mind, speech and body; or it can also be for the three gunas, the three qualities of tamas, rajas and sattva. So, it goes into this whole Samkhya philosophy type of thing as well. Tamas being darkness, the black one; rajas being a speck of blood, so the red one; and sattva being strength of heart, which is white. This is also analogous to how in each month from the 1st to the 15th, the days are space, wind, fire, water and earth three times; so, these are correlated as well to the days of the month being correlated with the elements and so forth. It becomes a whole complex interrelation of analogies.

That’s the basic description of the main Kalachakra figure, and then we’ll continue with the description of the other figures in the mandala.

We were talking about the actual main part of the sadhana, and that had the building up of the positive force, which was in analogy with building up the good karma for a good rebirth. Then we had the meditation on the four gateways to liberation, which was the building up of deep awareness, analogous to the process of death. We covered all that, and then the process of rebirth starts with the main part of the sadhana, and that has four parts: the supreme triumphant mandala, which is similar to the process of being born in a womb and the development within a womb, which is what we’re covering now; and then the supreme triumphant actions, which is similar to birth and growing up; and then the drop yoga, which is the bodhichitta developing fully, up to the age of 16; and then the subtle yoga, which is analogous to the bliss being full upon having reached the age of 16.

Within the first of these, which was the supreme triumphant mandala, we had the generation of the environment, which was similar to what happens in terms of the external environment arising at the end of when the atoms have all dispersed, and we have space atoms, and then they come back together again; and the same thing in terms of how an individual is formed.

First, it was purifying the elements and so on in the womb of the mother and purifying her. Then the syllables came together to the ten-part acrostic mantra, the HAMKSHAMALAVARAYA, and then back out again to purify the elements and so on of the practitioner themselves as they’re going to be formed in the womb.

Then the Buddha-figure himself is formed in terms of the five-part purification ahead, which as we saw was correlated to the formation of the five aggregates, the five deep awarenesses, five Buddha-families and so on, and then we had the actual main figure with all of his symbolism.

After we get the generation of the main Buddha-figure, I’ll just point out something about the things that he’s standing on. He’s standing on a red Kamadeva, who’s a deity of desire, and that’s referring to Mara, he’s also called. When it says that he holds five flower-arrows, they’re not arrows that are made out of flowers, but like flowers they pierce to the heart without leaving a wound on the body; they’re the arrows that make you ecstatic, or craving, or stupefied, emaciated or dead. These are the arrows that Mara uses, the main interferer. And under the left leg is white Rudra, the forceful, and that stands for the delusions or the disturbing attitudes.

Next, we have the generation of the main partner, and likewise for all these faces and so on, it says the way that the faces go. You basically have to draw a diagram for yourself and work it out how the faces are arranged, so that it fits together much more easily for you. It’s best to try to do that. If the main Kalachakra figure is unchanging great bliss, then the consort, the Mother of Diversity, Vishvamata, is standing for voidness either with or without an aspect. Without an aspect is voidness itself, and with an aspect is the devoid form. 

The ten powerful ladies are analogous to and purify the ten winds that arise at the heart: these are the eight winds, which are in the petals, the channels around the heart, of the heart chakra, and the two which are in the upper and lower parts of the central channel. That’s why you have Prajnaparamita and Jnanaparamita dissolved into Vishvamata, because that’s standing for the winds that are in the upper and lower part of the central channel at birth, as opposed to the eight who are around you, which are like the eight channels around the heart. Also, the fact that Prajnaparamita and Jnanaparamita are dissolved in Vishvamata shows that she purifies consciousness and deep awareness, because that’s what those two stand for. And it signifies that from binding together in the vase breathing and the vajra recitation at the navel the downward-going wind and the life-sustaining wind, which are what Prajnaparamita and Jnanaparamita are signifying, being the ones in the central channel, by bringing those two together at the navel, you get the great bliss and the devoid form. That likewise is symbolized by the fact that those two powerful ladies are dissolved in Vishvamata. Her description is pretty much straightforward. 

Then we have the eight powerful ladies who are standing around on the petals of the green lotus. The directions: the fire direction, as I mentioned before in the inner offering, is southeast; the truthless is southwest; the wind is northwest; and the powerful is northeast. You can also figure out where they go. As for the various things that they’re holding, a few of them are a little bit obscure. When it says there’s a divine-realm tree, that’s referring to a wish-granting tree. There’s the supreme medicine that’s held by one of them: that’s a panacea type of medicine that cures everything. There’s an elixir with a taste that brings actualizations – that’s referring to an alchemical elixir (because you also have a lot of symbolism of alchemy in this as well), which changes iron into gold and changes a human body into a god’s body. The other one is an ambrosia fruit, which is referring to the medicine called arura, which is one of the basic medicines in Tibetan medicine. Aside from that, everything in terms of the description of these eight powerful ladies is obvious from the thing that it’s saying. 

The two ones who aren’t actually generated, although they’re dissolved into the main consort Vishvamata, is Prajnaparamita: in other places she’s called blue Vishvamata, and although you never visualize her here, in fact she has three faces and six arms, and she purifies the downward-voiding wind and is generated from the syllable PHREM; and Jnanaparamita, sometimes called green Vajradhatu Ishvari, and she’s green and has three faces, six arms; she purifies the life-sustaining wind and is generated out of the syllable HO. Although they don’t appear here, and they don’t appear in the long sadhanas either, sometimes in the empowerment text, for instance, they are referred to, and they don’t look the same as these other ladies. These other ladies have eight arms and four faces, whereas these two have six and three. By the way, when they have eight arms, again it’s four on each side, and again they’re presented horizontally not vertically. 

As for the four ladies who are in the corners, you’ll notice that their names are Smokey Lady and Mirage Lady, Sparks-in-the-Sky Lady and Butter Lamp Lady; these are the names of the four night signs. You remember, we had the ten signs of dissolution, and these are the names of the first four of those. But there’s no correlation with the other six powerful ladies having correlations with the six day signs. So, symmetry is again stupid; it doesn’t correspond to that as well.

Externally you have ten planets, and so these ten ladies are also signifying and purifying the ten planets: the sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the north and south nodes (that’s Rahu and Kalagni), and the tenth one is called Comet; it’s a comet. The ten planets course through the 27 constellations in the sky – because the zodiac here is divided not only into the 12 signs of the zodiac but also the 27 constellations or houses of the moon, and these go to the north and south declination from the ecliptic. In other words, the ecliptic is the center of the zodiac, and sometimes these planets are on the north side of that or sometimes on the south side of that.

Internally you have the ten winds, and these go through the right and left channels, which are discussed similarly to the 27 constellations. Just as the ten planets go through the 27 constellations, the ten breaths go through the 27 constellations of the right and left channels. In the planets going through the 27 constellations, they’re either to the right or to the left of center of the zodiac, the ecliptic, and the winds going through the right and left channels, which are similar to these 27 constellations, are also either to the right or to the left. To ripen into having these winds be in the central channel and to have the planets not deviate, this is symbolized by the fact that these powerful ladies have their legs together. Their legs are equal:

[they] stand in the posture of both legs together. 

It is to ripen into having the planets be centralized and the winds be centralized, since the ladies purify both the planets and the winds. 

In the long sadhana you have after this the four insignia in the corners around the lotus: a conch, woodblock, a jewel and a wish-granting tree, appearing from OM, AH, HUM, HO. These are like the four channels of the crown chakra, from which bodhichitta falls.

Then what happens is:

Seeing with foresight that the vessel to whom is to be taught the Adibuddha is the perishable world of limited beings who can be tamed through their great desire, we, as father and mother, absorb ourselves in a balanced union. By the sounds of our consummate joy, the Triumphant Ones and their spiritual offspring are invited here before us. 

Adibuddha is another name for Kalachakra. 

The father and mother absorb into a balanced union, and then, by the sounds of our joy, the whole mandala comes forth in order to tame limited beings of the perishable world, in other words human beings. Here we’re only talking about a few figures, the four couples, but actually all 722 figures of the mandala come forth, and they come in and:

They enter into and infuse my body. They then are emanated back out from my body and settle, just as they were in me, inside the body of Vishvamata.

What happens is each of the whole group of Buddha-figures – that’s without a building, just the Buddha-figures themselves – come in, in the configuration as they would be in the mandala. They come in and go into your body, and they infuse or become part of that portion of the body that they are purifying. For instance, if they are Buddha-figures that are purifying the aggregates, then they infuse and become one with the aggregates. The ones who are purifying the elements become one with the elements in your body. You don’t really visualize that in terrible detail, because it’s not a body mandala, but just have a feeling that they become the various things in your body that they purify.

Then they go back out and go into the main consort, and they do the same thing in her body, and combine with all the elements, aggregates, chakras and so on in her body, and sort of purify it, become one with it.

Then it comes back out again and goes back up to the top of your head. It says:

From her, as well, they are likewise emanated out

They go through the vajra into the lotus. It’s like a Ferris wheel: it comes into you, goes down, infuses you, goes out your vajra into her lotus, infuses her, comes back out to the top of your head, and it says:

and once again, in the aspect of the circle of those in my mandala, they enter me through the crown of my head.

So, they come back in again.

As my bodhichitta that has melted from the fires of my great desire, they cascade through the pathway of my vajra into the lotus of the mother as drops. 

They go again through you. It’s a very extensive visualization of it going into you, then into her, then back into you, and then back into her, and now it comes to be inside her womb. 

And in the womb, first you’re going to get the drops, and then the drops are going to change into the seed syllables of the individual deities, then into their hand insignia or the emblems for them and then into the deities themselves. Then they’re going to be emanated from the mother’s lotus, sort of out of her, and then they’re going to settle into their individual seats in the mandala itself. Because first we had generated the mandala with all its seats here. Since in the short sadhana there’s only the main couple and the figures on the main lotus, there’s no other seats that are generated, but everybody else has seats throughout the mandala, and there are various different types of seats.

Now, this whole emanation of the mandala deities from the womb is analogous to the stages of development in the womb. All the deities come, and they infuse what they purify in the body, and then they go in and infuse the Mother – that’s Vishvamata – then they come back into you, and they melt as bodhichitta, and they go into your womb. There’s no building there. The seed syllables are very significant and symbolic, and there’s a whole thing, which we don’t really have time to go into, in terms of the vowels, the consonants and all the things, which are the seed syllables for everybody, but it indicates the element that they’re part of and so on, and fits together very nicely. It purifies extensively then speech as well, because it’s dealing with all the possible sounds and letters of the Sanskrit alphabet.

Kalachakra here is crowned by Vajrasattva. In this part of the sadhana, Kalachakra is in the nature of Akshobhya, and that’s why he’s crowned by Vajrasattva. Because that’s the way that it works: deep awareness is crowned by consciousness, it says, and consciousness by deep awareness; it works the reverse like that for these two. So, the main Buddha-figure being here in the nature of Akshobhya, he’s crowned by Vajrasattva.

Here we have these four couples which are generated: Akshobhya and Vajradhatu Ishvari couple, and Vajrasattva and his partner, and all of these are generated within the womb, as it is in the sadhana. I assume that you’re familiar with it: the main person is green, and the partner is blue, and then it’s the other way round – the main one is blue and the partner is green. According to one commentary by Locho Chokyong and the commentary by Detri Rinpoche, the couples themselves transform into Kalachakra when they’re in the womb, and then they’re emanated out. We can do it that way rather than have a green couple coming out, the main figure being green and the partner blue, coming out and dissolving into Kalachakra, and somehow becoming one with him. You can have it change already in the womb into a Kalachakra couple and come out and then dissolve into you.

Thus, you get these four couples coming out, and these couples, as with all the six male Buddhas, the male figures are purifications of the aggregates, and the female Buddhas are the purification of the elements. Here method is always going to embrace wisdom, so the male always embraces a female; you always have couples. Akshobhya is the aggregate of consciousness, and Prajnaparamita is the element of deep awareness, so those two go together as a couple. Vajrasattva is the aggregate of deep awareness, and Dharmadhatu Ishvari, his consort, is the element of space, which implies voidness. So, we have the deep awareness having as its object space, and consciousness taking as its object deep awareness when you put the things together in terms of the couples.

Thus, all of these are dissolved into the main couple, and the main couple has 12 figures who are merged within it. The 12 figures are: you have two, which are Kalachakra and Vishvamata; then you have the two of the Akshobhya couple; the two of the Prajnaparamita couple; the two of the Vajrasattva couple; the two of the Dharmadhatu Ishvari couple; and the two that is Jnanaparamita and Prajnaparamita, the sixth and tenth of the powerful ladies. Thus, Kalachakra and Vishvamata being two, the Akshobhya couple, Prajnaparamita couple, Vajrasattva couple, Dharmadhatu Ishvari couple and Jnanaparamita and Prajnaparamita make 12 figures in all that are absorbed into the main couple.

For the rest of the Buddha-figures, you always have method and wisdom embracing, so you always have the earth deities embracing the wind deities, so earth and wind go together; the yellow is earth, and black is wind. And fire and water always go together, so you have the red deities and the white deities together. It’s like a union of the opposites. The space and deep awareness are always embracing each other, so you have the blue deities and the green deities embracing each other. Then the seats as well, which are underneath them, also correspond to method and wisdom: whether there’s a sun seat or a moon seat, whether it’s a red lotus or a white lotus, all of that is going to be in conjunction with whether the Buddha-figure is a male or a female figure as the main one. You always have method and wisdom forming a pair. That’s the way it works.

The generation of the main couple, and the powerful ladies, and the vases, and the corner insignia are analogous to the occasion of the first three months in the womb. The first three months in the womb are called the unawareness, affecting impulses and consciousness months; in other words, these stages in the womb are named after the 12 links of dependent arising. The 12 shifts of the winds are also given the names of these 12 links of dependent arising and also given the names of the 12 signs of the zodiac. There’s quite a correlation that goes on of the 12 links of dependent arising, the 12 signs of the zodiac and the stages of the development within the womb. There’s a set of vases out, where the male and female Buddha couples sit, and they’re purified marrow, blood, urine, feces, sperm and blood or ovum speck, so that’s dealing with the various substances within the body.

Then you get the generation of the male and female Buddhas, and the forceful Buddha-figures of the mind mandala. You should note that when you have only the mind mandala, there are six forceful Buddha-figures, not only in the four gateways but also one above and one below, whereas if you have the body, speech and mind mandala altogether, there are only five couples there, so you have only the ones in the four doors and the one above. You don’t have the one below in the mind mandala when it’s part of body, speech and mind, so there’s a slight difference in number. The generation of them is analogous to the fourth month in the womb, which is the “name and form” month. The male and female Buddhas are the aggregates and the elements.

We had already the powerful ladies and the main couple; they are standing for the things around the heart chakra; that’s the first three months. Then the next month, the fourth month, when you get the Buddhas – first the male and female Buddhas and then the male and female forceful figures – those are standing for the aggregates and elements. The male Buddhas are the aggregates, the female Buddhas are the elements, and the forceful figures stand for the action organs and their objects: the arms, legs and so forth.

Then you get the emanation of the male and female bodhisattvas, and they’re analogous to the fifth and sixth months, which are the months of the six cognitive stimulators and contact. What they purify are the cognitive sensors and their objects, which is what makes the cognitive stimulators. They purify the eye, the eye sensor and various visual objects that you have, the ear sensor and sounds and so forth, so that system comes about.

Kedrup Norzang Gyatso says there’s no specific correlation of the Buddha-figures and the specifics of how the fetus actually develops in the womb, so you shouldn’t push the analogy too far and insist on symmetry. Each group of Buddha-figures is signifying or symbolizing a certain development within the womb, but it isn’t the case in the second chapter, where they describe the development in the womb, that the stimulators and contact only come in the fifth and sixth months; it’s not absolutely symmetrical with it.

Then you get a lot more Buddha-figures formed, but in this main part that I’ve described just now you get the 46 figures of the mind mandala generated like this. The 46 deities of the mind mandala are speaking in terms of the two main couple and the ten powerful ladies, the 12 male and female Buddhas, the 12 male and female bodhisattvas, and the ten male and female forceful Buddha-figures. If we’re doing only the mind mandala itself, then you get 12 forceful figures, which makes 48 figures. In fact, those are the mantras that you do for the retreat, the mantras for the 48 figures. 

All of these figures are analogous with the first to the sixth month in the womb, where you’re dealing with the chakra around the heart and the various aggregates, elements and so forth. Then after that, you get the 64 speech petal goddesses and the eight main couples of speech. This is analogous with the seventh month in the womb, when the feeling link arises, and they’re like the petals at the navel chakra and the petals at the throat chakra. So, the speech mandala deities are emanated next. I won’t go into all the detail of how they’re arranged and things like that, but since they purify the throat and navel chakras, that’s similar to the measurement of the speech mandala, which is the measurement in the body between the throat and the navel. 

Then you get the generation and emanation of the 360 date deities, which are in the body mandala, to purify the 360 days of the year, and the six forceful couples of the body mandala. These are analogous to the eighth month in the womb, the “craving” month. And this is where the whole body from the pubic region to the crown is complete, with all the limbs; and all these deities are analogous to the channels and the chakras of the arms and legs, the fingers and toes, and so on; it’s not necessary to go into too much detail. 

Then you get the generation and emanation of the ten naga couples and the ten rough lady couples. The naga couples are outside the body mandala building, and the rough lady couples are outside in the cemeteries. That’s analogous to the ninth (“obtaining”) month, and they’re purifying the channels in the fingers and the toes, which are the activity chakras. Also, you get in the ninth month the development of the pores and the hairs in the skin, and so similar to that you have outside the wind mandala and the main mandala 35 million elemental spirits; that’s purifying all the pores of the skin as well. You don’t have to worry, they don’t all have names, and they aren’t all holding different things! 

Then you get 12 offering goddesses of the mind mandala; they’re on the ledge outside of that; and the 36 offering deities called the desire ladies, and the 36 reverse-desire ladies, which are on the outside of the speech and body mandala. They’re not described as being analogous to a basis to be purified here at the supreme triumphant mandala, because here we’re dealing only with stages of development within the womb. But the 36 desire ladies are connected to the desire to speak, the desire to move, the desire to scratch, the desire to spit, all these various things; and the reverse-desire ladies are for the desire not to sit, not to spit, these sorts of things.

We have a very extensive system of deities being analogous to all sorts of things within the body; and these ones are for functions within the body. Here, on the occasion of the analogies within the womb, there’s no mention of the 88 deities of the planets, constellations and lunar-day periods, which are also in the cemeteries; there’s a whole group of 88 of them out there.

If we count the deities, if we don’t include the 35 million elemental spirits, then there are 722 deities, and they’re all in six families of the six elements. They’re all generated out there, and they go through the links like that: we have the first ten links, and they’re all in groups for the ten months within the womb, the last period being counted as the tenth; and after that we get the links of birth, aging and death. So, the whole thing fits very nicely. Here we’re only generating the four couples that are dissolved into us, but in the long sadhana obviously you’d have all the deities.

Then, after you’ve generated all the deities, you get Conferring in This Mandala the Empowerment of Compassion to Limited Beings. It says: 

With myself clearly appearing as Kalachakra, Vanquishing Master Surpassing All, with an identity nature of the five types of deep awareness, now with light rays emanated from my heart, I hook back in all limited beings. 

We had those deep awarenesses before. Then you give out light rays from your heart; you hook back in all limited beings, so they enter inside the symbolic round world; everybody comes into your mandala. And then:

When they enter inside my mandala (palace), we, as father and mother, absorb ourselves in a balanced union, (which draws) the father and mother Thusly Gone Buddhas (into my heart). With the bodhichitta into which they melt from the fires of our great desire, I confer empowerment on these limited beings. Transforming into the circle of those in my mandala world, assuming aspects having the 32 excellent signs, they depart to each of their own Buddha-fields.

Thusly Gone Ones are the Tathagatas. That’s an awfully tough term because it’s explained in the commentaries as having so many different meanings. The “gone” is in the sense of “progressed” because it’s like going into clear light: it goes in accordance with the various signs to become a Buddha; it comes out of clear light, so “gone” also means “to come,” to come out of clear light in the various stages for forming the bodies of a Buddha. And it’s gone “thusly,” or “accordantly,” in the sense of in accordance with how it went before.

Also, it has the idea of transforming oneself in accordance with reality, in accordance with the way that it really is. So “Tathagata” has all those meanings, and it can be translated as “Accordantly Progressed,” because “progressed” can have the meaning of both going into clear light, coming out of clear light and transforming oneself; and “accordantly” can mean both according to how it was done before or also according to what’s the actual nature of reality.

What happens is that you bring in everybody, and you go into union, and the lights from the place of union go out, and you draw in sentient beings into the mandala; then you draw in the male and female Buddhas; they dissolve into you; they melt with bodhichitta; and from the light rays from the bodhichitta drop, you transform everybody’s aggregates, elements, cognitive sensors and their objects, action organs and their objects into the nature of deities – each from a seed syllable like KSHA etc., which consists of a vowel: that’s the seed syllable of the Buddha-figure of what you’re purifying, and this is between the letters K and H, which are the first and last letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, so it encompasses everything. As always, these seed syllables are filled with a tremendous amount of meaning. You purify everybody, and then everybody goes away to their pure lands.

Then you assume extremely pure self-esteem with the mantra:

OM SU-VISHUDDHA DHARMA-DHATU SVABHAVA ATMAKO ‘HAM

It means, “I am the nature of the dharmadhatu, the sphere of all things, which is su-vishuddha, extremely pure.” That takes care of the first part here, the supreme triumphant mandala, the whole development of what’s going on in the womb. That’s also called the approximating branch.