WSW 5: Homage to Yamantaka – Outer, Inner and Hidden Yamantakas

Recap 

We have gone through the preliminaries for being able to study Wheel of Sharp Weapons. We’ve gone through the graded stages of the path, with which we work ourselves up through three levels of motivation on the spiritual path. First, to have the aim to improve our future lives so that, just as we have a precious human life in this lifetime, we can continue to have them in future lives so that we can continue our spiritual practice. Then the next aim is liberation, and so we think in terms of gaining full liberation from uncontrollably recurring rebirth or samsara. We have renunciation, with which we are determined to be free, and we are completely willing to give up not only our suffering but the causes of the suffering, even though that might be difficult to do. 

Then finally we think of others and all the problems that they have as well. We’re not alone in suffering, in the samsaric situation, and so we develop bodhichitta – the wish or the aim to benefit all beings. Then following directly from that is the aim to reach enlightenment in order to be able to actually do that – to benefit them in the best way that is possible. This is the bodhisattva path. Bodhisattva is somebody who has bodhichitta – this bodhichitta aim to reach enlightenment for the benefit of all. Then we need to follow some sort of practice. We have a bodhisattva practice here with Wheel of Sharp Weapons, and so we’re ready to go into the text. It’s a Mahayana training of the mind, or a training of the attitudes, or attitude cleansing – there are many different words that we can use to translate the Tibetan term here. What we are training to do is to change our attitudes – to cleanse out, or clean out, or purify out negative ones, and to develop and train ourselves to have positive ones. That’s a Mahayana training of the mind because it is intended to help us to reach enlightenment.

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