Instructions for This Lifetime: Avalokiteshvara Deity Practice

This was the transmission of the section. We start the meditation by visualizing before us a beautiful place like a pure realm, which is of the nature of beautiful gems and so forth, the ground is completely smooth and made of polished gems like lapis lazuli and so on. In the center, there is a beautiful lake of pure and clear water. In this lake, there are various beautiful water birds and songbirds and so forth that are above. The sands around the lake are all golden and very sweet to the taste if we were to eat them. At the sides of the lake, there are beautiful trees, flowers and shrubs with birds singing beautifully. In the center of the lake, there is a magnificent thousand-petaled lotus, the center of which has four major petals.

In the center of the lotus, as the main figure who is incorporating all the qualities of the Buddhas and objects of refuge, we have Avalokiteshvara or Chenrezig, the one who completely embodies all the compassion of all the Buddhas. This is the central figure. This can be either the four-armed aspect of Chenrezig as we have here with the picture on the wall, which is the more usual form of Chenrezig, or we can also have the Khasarpani form of Chenrezig who is white, has one face, two arms, is standing up and has the right hand down with the palm facing out; the left hand is up at the center of his chest, holding a lotus, which comes from his hand up towards his left ear by his shoulder. It doesn’t matter which aspect of Chenrezig we are using. We can use any of them, such as one of these two.

Significance of the Name Chenrezig 

The name Khasarpani is referring to, I believe, is the name of an area where the great master of this tradition Maitriyogi did his practices and received a true vision of Chenrezig. I believe this form of Chenrezig is given the name Khasarpani from the name of the actual area where this occurred. 

The four-armed Chenrezig is given that name as it has four arms. If we actually look at the name Chenrezig, there is a great deal that can be understood from the name. The first syllable of the name “chen” is the polite, the honorific form of the word for “eyes.” “Eyes” is the first syllable, and “re,” the second syllable, means cloth, and “zig,” the third syllable, is to see or behold cloth – any type of material of fabric. 

In India, people wear many pieces of cloth draped over themselves. When the cloth is worn out and is of no more use, they throw the cloth away. Chenrezig is one whose honored eyes look at all living beings like in the example of the cloth. He doesn’t look at them like seeing an old, worn-out cloth and feeling that it has no no use, and therefore throwing it away. Rather he looks at them as safeguarding even a useless piece of cloth. His honored eyes look at all others in a manner of not wanting to throw them away like an old useless piece of cloth. This can be understood by the syllables of his name. 

The various names that we have of deities, for instance, like this, all have various levels of meaning that we can understand and infer from the name. This is merely food for thought. It is not logically pervasive that they have to have a particular implication. For instance, a lotus is given the name in poetry of a thing that is born from a lake. The lake-born thing is a poetical way of referring to a lotus, but it’s not pervasive that lotuses have to be born from a lake because likewise, there are lotuses that appear in various land areas as well. They can be born from a lake, with an area of water, but they can also be born in dry land, so they could also be called “born from the dry.” However, the name itself gives us something to think about. 

Training to Generate the Dedicated Heart of Bodhichitta 

The wish for everyone to be free of suffering and problems is compassion. The wish for everybody to be happy is called love. When we assume the universal responsibility to do it ourselves that “I will bring happiness to everyone, and I will help rid them of all their problems,” this is known as the state of exceptional resolve, the resolve to do it ourselves. 

When we have the full intention to be able to help all beings and wish to achieve the enlightened state of the Buddha in order to do this, the state of totally dedicated heart to these two things is known as the dedicated heart of bodhicitta. If we look at the nature of such a dedicated heart, we can differentiate two levels of it, one is the aspiring type of dedicated heart, with which we aspire or wish for something, and the other is the involved state of dedicated heart. 

What is this aspiring state of the dedicated heart? It is the wish or aspiration that “I must be able to help everybody, and in order to do so, I must achieve the enlightened state of a Buddha.” It’s a strong wish or aspiration, which is known as the aspiring state of a dedicated heart. Within that, there is another stage in which we feel, “I will never give up the aspiration until I do achieve enlightenment.” This strong pledge is known as the pledged type of an aspiring dedicated heart. 

If we generate this type of strong pledge, then there are five points within which we should train ourselves. If we don’t have this strong pledge, but merely aspire to achieve enlightenment in order to be able to benefit everyone, then there is no need to train in these five points. Further, if we go on, and not just simply aspire to achieve enlightenment to benefit everyone, but we involve ourselves in all the various practices and trainings to reach that state, such as the six far-reaching attitudes or perfections and the four ways of being a positive influence on others – when we have this type of dedicated heart involved in these practices, this is known as the involved type of dedicated heart. If we generate that type of dedicated heart, which is totally involved in this manner, then there are the various vowed restraints that we would follow in terms of our involvement, and these are known as the bodhisattva vows, vows of a dedicated being.

There are various ways in which we would fall from the vowed restraints, such as, for instance, praising ourselves and putting down others. This is a downfall from these restraints. There are 18 root vows that we can have downfalls from, and 46 secondary faulty actions. The bodhisattva vows involve promising to safeguard ourselves from committing any of the root downfalls or secondary faulty actions. 

If I were to go into full detail about all these various points, I would not be able to finish in such a short time. In the future, when learned masters are here for longer periods, you can ask for a more detailed teaching on these points. 

We discussed the dedicated heart of bodhicitta. This is the division in terms of the nature of such a dedicated heart, and in addition, there are various different ways of dedicating our heart to others and to achieving enlightenment. There are three major ways. 

The first is to dedicate our heart in the manner of a king. If we want to benefit everyone in our land or country, we can’t do that until we become a ruler or king. Therefore, in analogy to this, we can have the style with which we wish to become totally clear-minded and fully evolved ourselves, we wish to realize our fullest potentials and become a fully enlightened Buddha first, so that then, we will be able to help everybody. That is the first style of dedicating our heart like a king. 

The second type is to dedicate our heart as an oarsman, someone who is rowing a boat. This analogy is taken in terms of how someone who is rowing a boat, in which there are many passengers, goes across the waters together with the passengers he is helping. When we dedicate our heart to go together with all beings at the same time, in terms of helping to bring them to an enlightened state as we travel along with them, this is the manner of dedicating our heart like an oarsman. 

The third method is to dedicate our heart in the manner of a shepherd. A shepherd is someone who drives animals such as sheep in front of him and takes care of them, leading them in front, and he follows them behind once they are all safe. In this style, we wish to work really hard to bring everybody to an enlightened state of Buddhahood, and only once everybody else is in this condition, then we ourselves will actually achieve it afterwards. This is the style of dedicating our heart like a shepherd. The manner in which Chenrezig has dedicated his heart to helping others is the third manner, the dedication of a shepherd. 

He has dedicated his heart to come to others, coming to help others when the suffering is the most intense, when everybody is experiencing the worst types of troubles. When we look at the line of incarnations of Chenrezig, the line of His Holiness, the first of these was as a monk, the great master Gendun Drub, the First Dalai Lama. He prayed to be able to help all others in miserable and terrible situations, everyone who is stuck in an imperfect situation in life. His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, the present incarnation, is likewise working in this manner; he works tirelessly with total dedication to others and to enlightenment, now at a time that the people of his country have been experiencing the worst types of horrors and difficulties. 

Especially during the degenerate times, various beings are facing innumerable types of suffering, horrors, many sicknesses and disasters. Although there are various different forms of emanated beings, such as Manjushri and Vajrapani, the one who is well known as actually taking a manifestation now in this time, among all of them is Chenrezig. The fact that he is found present now in the world is a sign that Chenrezig is the incarnation of all the compassion of the Buddhas. Therefore, if we take Chenrezig as the object of our meditation, it is extremely beneficial. 

Visualizing All the Buddhas as Objects of Refuge  

Getting back to the visualization, on the front petal of the lotus, are all the Buddhas from both the sutra and tantra traditions. All the Buddhas from the tantra tradition – of the deity practices – appear wearing various types of jewel ornaments and heavenly clothes, whereas the Buddhas from the sutra traditions have a crown protrusion (ushnisha) on the top of their heads and are all dressed in the traditional robes of a monk. On the right petal, to our left but right if we look from the point of the central figure, is set up all the essential points in terms of the abandonments, realizations on the mind-stream of the Buddha, all these qualities, which are the actual Dharma – the preventive measures are set up there in the form of scriptural texts, and we have a huge stack of these scriptural texts, like a mountain giving out rays of light and the actual sounds of all the words contained within them. On the petal to the rear of the central figure, are the various dedicated beings, bodhisattvas such as Maitreya and Manjushri. Other members of the Sangha or the community of those intent on a positive goal are likewise on this rear petal; among them, we have the various supreme disciples of the Buddha, such as Shariputra and Maudgalyayana. On the left petal from the perspective of the central figure, are all the various protectors of the Dharma who help to get rid of various interferences and demonic forces that would cause hindrances to out spiritual practice. These would include the six-armed Mahakala, Dharmaraja and Vaishravana and so forth. 

We should imagine that the entire space in front of us is completely filled with these objects of refuge who can provide a safe and sound direction for us to take in life. The sky is filled with all these objects, and we should imagine the ground around us filled with all beings who have limited minds (sentient beings), who all seek the safe direction to take in life, all of them are seeking refuge. 

We are in the center of this huge crowd of beings who all are seeking the safe direction to take. On our right, sitting directly next to us is our father in this lifetime. We should imagine sitting directly to our left is our own mother. We should imagine sitting in front of us are all our friends and the various people who have helped us. We should imagine sitting behind us are all various types of beings with limited minds, so everybody else is sitting behind us. Having a feeling of great dread of not wanting to have any suffering in life, we see that the objects before us can actually provide a safe direction in life so that we can avoid all these problems that we dread, and we realize that everyone around us likewise is in need of this safe direction in life. We should lead all of them as a chant leader into taking direction (taking refuge) from these objects. We imagine that you all chant together in a great chorus. 

First, we say, we take refuge from the lamas or spiritual masters, and we would imagine various lights and nectars come from the objects in front of us and fill us and all the limited beings around, and they eliminate everyone’s sicknesses and disorders. 

If we are reciting 12 times that we take the safe and positive direction of the spiritual masters, then the first three times, we should imagine all the negative things that we have built up in terms of the body, such as killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, leave our body from the bottom in the form of soot and black ink and tar. In the second round, we imagine the obstacles and negative potentials that we’ve built up in the body leave us in the form of soot and tar, and then the various pollutions and disorders that have come from these negative actions of the body leave us in the form of feces, urine and nasal discharge. The third round of three are various diseases, sickness and harms from spirits that have come because of the destructive actions of our body leave us in the forms of various repulsive insects, scorpions, snakes, spiders, frogs, toads and so on. 

When we are doing 12 – these are the first three of those – which are three of those visualizations with respect to the various things that we built up by the destructive actions of our body, the various obstacles that we have built up leave us in the forms of soot and tar, and various pollutions and impurities we built up in the form of feces, urine, and the various sicknesses and harms from spirits leave us in the forms of scorpions and snakes. 

If we are doing 12, then we need four sets of three. So, the second set of three now follows. The first three were in terms of the things we built up by the negative actions of our body, and these leave our lower orifices through the three types of visualizations. The next three concern the negative potentials that we built up with our destructive actions of speech. These leave us out of our upper orifices. Again, the various obstacles, negative potentials we built up by our destructive speech come out of us from the upper orifices in the forms of soot and tar, and pollutions and impurities from our negative speech in the form of snot and feces, and various sicknesses and harms from spirits leave our upper part in the forms of insects and snakes. 

We come to the third set of three visualizations. Again, we take refuge from the lamas. We imagine that we are getting rid of various obstacles of the mind that we built up by our negative actions of the mind. For these visualizations, we imagine that all these obstacles and pollutions are in the form of a big lump of darkness in our heart and various nectars come like a bolt of lightning and totally clear out all this heavy darkness in our heart. It eliminates these three different classes of obstacles, pollutions and sicknesses of the mind with this visualization of directly flushing it out from the heart. 

The fourth set of three, we need to imagine that we are doing the obstacles of body, speech and mind all at once, and we have all the visualizations going on at once of things leaving from our lower and upper orifices and directly flushing it out from our heart. These are the last three of the 12 rounds. 

If we are going to repeat this line 28 times, then we would do four sets of seven each. If we are to do 200, then we would do 50 each. If we were to do 100, we would do 25 each. If we were to do these types of visualizations and practices while we are doing this particular point here, this is very beneficial. We should do the same in terms of the further things we recite in terms of taking our direction of life from the Buddhas, taking it from the Dharma, the spiritual measures, and taking it from the intent community of the Sangha. We would apply the same 12 visualizations each. 

When we are doing this in terms of taking refuge from the lamas, we would have light coming from the entire objects visualized in front of us, but we would have it especially coming from the spiritual master as the figure in the center. Then, when we are taking our direction from the Buddhas (taking refuge), we imagine it coming from the entire field before us, but primarily from the Buddhas in the visualization in both the Sambhogakaya and Nirmanakaya aspects – in the aspects of Bodies of Full Use and Emanation Bodies. 

When we are taking safe direction from the lamas, then although it purifies us in general of all negativities, we should imagine specifically that we are being purified of the negative potentials that we have done against the spiritual masters such as by disturbing their minds, disobeying what they have said and so on. 

When we take our safe direction from the Buddhas, we should imagine it purifies us of all negativities, but specifically and primarily of the negativities that we’ve built up with respect to the Buddhas, which would be things such as criticizing various statues and representations of the Buddhas (saying “this one is good, this one is bad”), selling Buddha statues, using them as collateral for a loan or putting them in pawnshops.  

When we take our safe direction from the Dharma, again in general it purifies us of all negativities, but specifically those we built up with respect to negative actions towards spiritual teachings, which would be the same as was mentioned for the Buddha statues, which would be selling and being involved in business with Dharma texts, and likewise doing disrespectful things to the scriptures, like putting things on top of the various pages of the texts. Although if there is a strong wind, we could put something on top of the pages to prevent them from blowing away. Except for that type of circumstance, we should never put anything on top of our books. When we are turning the pages of our text, we shouldn’t stick our finger in our mouth and wet our finger with saliva and use that to turn the pages of the book. If we have to wet our fingers, we should put a bowl of clean water to the side and dip our fingers into that. 

Likewise, we should have full respect for any form of the written word in whatever language. The written word is the medium in which to transmit the various spiritual teachings, and it is important to always be respectful of the written word. If we have newspapers, we shouldn’t sit on them or stand on them or step over them, and we shouldn’t use them to wipe the floor or wrap garbage in, or have any other type of disrespectful actions against the written word. 

As for where we should keep our books, if we have a large book, it might be difficult, but with regular books, we shouldn’t just put them down on a bare table or seat or on the floor, but we should have some type of cover over them, like a piece of cloth. 

We should think of all the various negative potentials that we have built up towards the Dharma and imagine specifically that we are purifying ourselves of those. 

As for the negative actions that are built up with respect to the spiritual community of the Sangha, in general, when we have a Dharma center or a group of people being involved together in spiritual pursuit, it is important that we don’t misuse the funds or possessions that belong to the group. We shouldn’t use them without a reason, for our private gain and profit. It builds up negative potential with respect to being disrespectful of the spiritual community.  

In general, when we are dealing with various possessions or transactions of money or whatever with others, it is important if we are going to give something as a gift, just give it. If we are giving and the other person should give money back for it, or should give something in return, or someone borrowed money from us, and we owe it back to them, whatever type of transaction is involved, it is very important to just do it straightforwardly. If somebody gives us something, we immediately pay for it. If someone lends us something, we immediately give it back. If we pay at a restaurant and the other person does not give us money, and we say, “Forget about it, it doesn’t matter,” but later, in fact, it does matter, and we’ve left it and haven’t really kept strict accounts, then there is great cause for arguments and bad feelings. In general, it is not a proper way of handling money matters. Whatever transaction we are involved with others concerning money or possessions or things, we should straighten our accounts immediately and not leave it in a sloppy fashion. 

This is true, in general, as a piece of advice. It is specifically very important when dealing with the financial affairs of a Dharma center. We shouldn’t be sloppy with the financial affairs of the community. Whatever expenses there are, whatever needs to be paid out or received back in, we should do that on the spot and not leave it. If we are sloppy in terms of the possessions of a spiritual community, it is a negative thing and can build up great negative potentials. If we built up negative potentials in this matter, we should take direction from the Sangha and imagine we are purifying ourselves of all these negativities that we’ve built up.

If, for instance, we wipe our dirty hands on a robe of an ordained person or on a piece of cloth that an ordained person sits down on their seat, then this is something very negative and dangerous, and the result that ripens from it is that we see some people who have dark discolorations of their skin, like a dark blotch on their face or back; this is a result of them wiping their hands on an ordained person’s robes. 

If we use the possessions of the Sangha for our own private use, this is negative. For instance, if we take the pot which is used for cooking the monks’ food and if we use it for our own use when it is supposed to be used for the community, then the results that ripen from it would be being born as an animal trapped inside that type of shape. Clams and various sea creatures are trapped inside shells that look like pots, and this is the result of making improper use of pots and pans of the community. 

We should imagine we are purified of any types of negative potentials that we might have built up with respect to the spiritual community, and then we and everybody around us are purified of these negative potentials, and we should imagine and visualize that everybody changes into the form of Chenrezig. 

We should then imagine that all these beings in the form of Chenrezig fly off to the pure land realm of Chenrezig called Potala, and that we have caused them all to go to this pure land realm. Then, we imagine these objects visualized in front of us who provide us safe direction or refuge, all of them dissolve into light, and this light dissolves into us in the middle of our brow. If we find it difficult to visualize in such a complicated manner all these figures, then it is sufficient to visualize only one Chenrezig in front of us, and this Chenrezig incorporates all objects of safe direction in life and do all the visualizations with this one figure – receiving rays of lights and nectars and so forth. 

This completes the first section of the outline, which is the instructions for how to incite and move ourselves into the practice, which provides the circumstance. The second is the instructions for developing a dedicated heart of bodhicitta, which will act as the cause for our success in these practices. 

As was said before, it is necessary to develop compassion. We do this by thinking of the kindness of others, of all beings with limited minds. In fact, there is no one kinder to us than these limited creatures and beings, and it is necessary to repay all their kindness and develop a feeling of compassion for everyone with which we wish for everyone to be free of all their problems and sufferings. We should feel a strong feeling that “How wonderful it would be if everyone were free of all their problems, and how wonderful it would be for everyone to be happy.” This way, we should try to generate love and compassion. 

We need to have the feeling of compassion, the wish for everybody to be free of problems and suffering, and we need to have the feeling of love, the wish for everyone to be happy, with the exceptional resolve with which we resolve that “I’m going to do something about it. I’m going to try to make everybody happy and relieve them of all their problems and suffering.” When we examine ourselves, we discover that we don’t, in fact, have the ability to be able to do all this. The only one who can do this is somebody who is totally clear-minded, fully evolved, someone who realized their fullest potentials and became an enlightened Buddha. Therefore, we should feel strongly that “I myself must become a Buddha in order to be able to help everybody.” This is the dedicated heart of bodhicitta. 

Therefore, we accept the motivation that in order to be able to benefit everyone, “I am going to train myself in this profound practice of The Three Essential Moments. This is how I’m going to be able to help everyone and reach enlightenment.” This is the motivation we would try to build up here at this point of the practice. We recite three times that we shall now enter into the profound practice of the revealing type of discourse of The Three Essential Moments, and we repeat that three times while we dedicate our heart to others and to achieving enlightenment by this practice. 

This “revealing type of discourse” is referring to when we have, for instance, a medical teacher who is teaching various people about anatomy; they would cut open the body of a corpse and reveal everything inside to the students. Likewise, this is a revealing discourse in the sense that all the essential points of practice are openly revealed to the disciples. 

The third point in the outline in the instructions is making a request to the spiritual master, the meditational deity, deity-master, as the actual method. 

[Transmission of the section of the text] 

We would visualize ourselves for this practice in the form of, for instance, Khasarpani Chenrezig. We are standing with one face, two arms, white, our arms are in the gestures as demonstrated, the right hand down with the palm facing out, and the left hand up at our heart, holding a lotus by our shoulder. Inside our heart, we should imagine a thousand-petaled lotus. We imagine the thousand-petaled lotus (the color wasn’t mentioned), and on each of the petals, we have the white syllable AH. In the center of the lotus, we have our own mind in the form of the meditational deity, which is a tiny Khasarpani Chenrezig, the size of the small joint of our finger. 

Further, we imagine that we have on the top of our head a relic monument, a stupa, and it has in each of its directions a thousand doors. We imagine that in the inner sanctum inside of the stupa on our head, on a lotus and moon disk seat is standing our own spiritual master in the form of Khasarpani Chenrezig. In the front of the stupa in the eastern direction, we imagine we have a thousand Vairochana Buddhas who are in the gesture that was just demonstrated. In the southern direction in the thousand doors, we have Ratnasambhavas, who are in this gesture; the front ones are white, the ones in the south are yellow. In the thousand doors behind are Amitabhas who are red, a thousand of them, and their hands are in this gesture. At the left of the northern face of the stupa, in the thousand doors, there are a thousand green Amoghasiddhi Buddhas, and their hands are in the gesture that was demonstrated. 

For the Khasarpani who is our spiritual master inside the stupa on the crown of our head, and for ourselves as Khasarpani Chenrezig, and for the Khasarpani Chenrezig who is in our heart, all three of them have a crown on the top of their heads with the head of our Buddha family Amitabha. We should visualize the seed syllables OM AH HUM at the crown of the head, throat and heart of all these Buddhas and Khasarpanis in this visualization.