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The Four Foundation Yogas of the Tibetan Buddhist Tantra by Sangharakshita

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M r. Chairman and Friend s, As you've just heard we're continuing our course, `Introduction to Tibetan Bud dhism.' In the course of this series of lectures we'v e hea rd first of all quite a b it about the history of Buddhism in Tibet from the very earliest times, from its initial introduction, we 've hea rd ab out sch ools, like those of the Nyingmapas, the Kagyup as, Gelugpas, and so on. We've heard about religious institutions and estab lishments of various kinds, and also about the Dalai Lama, about lay people in Tibetan Buddhism, about monks and mon astic life, and la st week of course we dealt w ith som e, just so me, o f the symb ols of T ibetan Buddh ist art.

And today, this evening, we come to something even more practical, something, if I may say so, e ven more tangib le than the symbols of Tibetan Buddhist art. This evening we come, if not to the very heart of Tibetan spiritual p ractice , at least to its A BC . To day we're dealing b riefly with what are known as the Four Fou ndation Y ogas of the T ibetan Buddh ist Tantra.

It may well be that most of you have never heard of these Founda tion Y ogas befo re, and this isn't at all surprising because hardly anything in fact is known about these practices in the West. It might not be an exaggeration to say that nothing is known about them in the W est. T here a re refer ence s, very cryp tic references, in a few tex ts which h ave b een tra nslated from th e T ibetan and p ublished in rather obscure journals, so perhaps as I say it would not be an exaggeration even to make the statement that nothing rea lly is known in the West, or even outside Tibet, about these particular practices. But they are, nevertheless, of the utmost importance. Because they are not known about, because they are not well known in the W est, it doe sn't mean that they don't have a very prominent and very impo rtant, a ve ry influential ro le to pla y in Tib etan B udd hism.

Often we tend to think th at if we do n't know abo ut som ething in the W est, nob ody k now s abo ut it anywhere, rather like as som eone rece ntly poin ted o ut, our talk of Colombus discovering America. Of course Colombus discovered America only from the standpoint of those Europeans who, up to that time, had been ignorant of the ex istence of Am erica. S o in the sa me w ay these Fou ndation Y ogas may b e new to us, but they're very, very familiar things indeed, very, very familiar ground indeed to Tibetan B udd hists and Tibetan Bud dhism. W e can say I think that these four prac tices, these Four Fo undation Y ogas, these Four Mula Yogas, constitute the basis of the whole spiritual life of Tibet. If one doesn't know something about these practices, if one hasn't some acquaintance with them at least, then one knows really nothing about the spiritua l life of T ibet. Y ou m ay kno w all ab out the Dalai Lam a and you m ay kno w a ce rtain amount of Mahayana philosophy and so o n, but if you don't know , if you haven't grasped these practices, and essentially they are practices, if you don't know something about them, if you haven't caught the feel of them, then really you know nothing about Tibetan Buddhism at all, spiritually speaking, on the spiritual plane.

And inasmuch, as I've said, in the W est these practices are really unknown, even the names of them are unknown, to this exte nt we m ay say that T ibetan Buddh ism on the spiritua l side is simply no t known in the W est at all. And it's because of this fact, because these practices, these four Mula Yogas, are so importan t, because they underpin and unde rgird a s it were the whole vast fabric, the whole vast superstructure of Tibetan religious and spiritual life. It's for this reason that I've dec ided to d evote a who le lecture to these practices.

Now first of all, just a few general observations. Now the practices are called Foundation Yogas or M ula Yo gas. M ula is a Sa nskrit word. It means literally root. It also means a foundation. And you can speak of either root yogas or foundation yogas because the two terms, the two interpretations, are very closely connected, just as yo u may h ave a tree with ro ots, bu t the roo ts are not just roots, the roots are as it were the foundation of the wh ole tree , the tree sta nds firm ly and sq uarely u pon its roots. If the roots are weak as we know the tree may topple over. And in the same way we find that if the mula yogas are weak, then the tree, the edifice of the sp iritual life which one trie s to ere ct upo n that fou ndation is we ak and may also topp le over.

And therefore we find that in Tibetan Buddhism that the Four Foundation Yogas, the Four Mula Yogas are preparatory to the whole system, to the prac tice of th e whole system of Vajrayana meditation and religious observance gener ally. In other words they form , they constitute the e ntranc e, the door way, the g atewa y, to the prac tice of the Tantra. And it is said, it is in fact emphasised in Tibetan Buddhism, that there is no success on the Tantric path, no suc cess in V ajraya na pr actice if the Four Fou ndation Y ogas, the Fo ur M ula Yo gas, are neglected. They come first. You must practise these four first before you can think of embarking on the practice of the Vajrayana, on the practice of Tantric Buddhism.

In the W est I know some peo ple have got into the habit of thinking that the Tantra, the Vajrayana, is a short and easy path. We're always looking for shortcuts, and as soon as you mention the Tantra, the Vajrayana, peo ple's ears prick up. And you can almost see them or at least feel them thinking, well here's a nice easy way which, as it were, circumvents all that meditation and all that asceticism and all that study, and you can get it quickly, easily, gaily as it were. Well there's a certain amount of truth in this. In a sense we may say the Tantra is a short and easy path. One may say that it's short if one practises it long enough, and one can say that it's easy if o ne pr actises it ha rd en ough ! And the T ibetan s thems elves o ne ma y say often spend year s upo n years w orking on these Foundation Yo gas, on these Mula Yo gas. Years. I'm sure some of you have heard of some T ibetan monks - I believe I mentioned them in an earlier lecture - some Tibe tan monk s who go into retreat for a period of three mon ths, three weeks, three days, three hours and three minutes. This is a tradition. And sometimes of course they go into retre at for thre e years and th ree m onths a nd so on.

So you might wonder, well what do the y do? Th ere the y are shu t up in the ir little hermita ge in their cell, with just a glim merin g of light co ming throug h a small slit or a small opening and their meal is just pushed through once a day, a nd the y're all alon e there in dark ness o r semi-d arkne ss in most cases, well what do they do? W ell it's easy eno ugh to say, well they med itate, but ju st imagine. Just think of yourself sitting down in a darkene d room a nd ju st meditating , but indefinite ly. Yo u wou ldn't get very far, you wou ldn't know what to do. After an hour you'd be restless, you might be pacing up and down your cell and wondering what to do n ext. B ut the T ibetan s aren't like that. W hen the Tib etans go into this so rt of retreat they really do get on with it. One of the things they do get on with, one o f the groups of p ractices with which they do get on is this group of the Four Mula Yogas, the Four Foundation Yogas. And I have known myself personally Tibetan monks, Tib etan yo gis, who have said after years o f seclusio n in this way, it's rema rkab le how qu ickly the time goes. Th ey say the days, the weeks, the mo nths, they just slip by because they're fully engaged with it, fully occupied with the practices which they find very interesting and the more they go on with them, the more deeply they go into them, the more interesting, the more fascinating even , they do find them .

Bu t this is the Tibetan way. The Tibetans are prepared to devote a great deal of time. They're prepared to be patien t. Th ey're prepa red to prac tise hard and to prac tise long. But in th e W est unfo rtunately we do tend to be sometimes a little less pa tient and we do tend v ery often to expect from our spiritual life, from our spiritual practices, rather quick results. Thus it is perhaps that quite a lot of people tend to neglect the prelim inaries o f spiritual life, of med itation an d so o n.

But we can say that the preliminaries, if these are mastered, constitute really half the battle. I know on other occasions in other talks I have gone so far as to say that if you prepare for meditatio n pro perly in the full sense th en you are alre ady m editating , or at lea st almo st med itating if you p repa re you rself pro perly.

On ly too o ften we tend to think of the means and the end as som ething so rt of sharply sepa rated: the means is a means to the end and you can as it were separate the one from the other. And sometimes we try to have the end, separating the end from the means, but this isn't really possible. I remember on one o ccasio n Mahatma Ga ndhi r ema rked that the en d is the extrem e of m eans. If yo u really wa nt the end, de vote yo urself who leheartedly to the means and forget all about the end. In this way you will gain, sometimes before you've noticed that you've gain ed it, the e nd. So if you p eg aw ay at the p relimina ries you will find you rself, in due course, deep in the heart of the essentials. But if you try to neglect the preliminaries and jump ahead and leap ahead , then you may no t find yourself anywhe re at all. Perhaps we'll return to this topic before the end of the lecture.

Now for the meaning of the word `yoga'. W e're dealing with the Mula ...


.. Mula Yogas, so mula means root, or foundation. W hat does yoga mean? N ow here we must be rather careful, because the meaning of this word `yoga' has be en unfo rtunately rather d eba sed in th e W est. And nowa days if you men tion the w ord `yoga' to people, well, they'll take it to mean anything from standing on your head to practising an Eastern variety of black magic! And even in India the word `yoga' is rather ambiguous. It has all sorts of different meanings.

It's assoc iated w ith vario us system s and with vario us exe rcises. L iterally the word yoga means simply `that which unites' or `that which joins' an d it's etymo logica lly joined with the E nglish wo rd `yok e'.

In popular Hinduism the wo rd yoga me ans ap pro ximate ly simply tha t which u nites on e with truth or rea lity or Go d, in oth er wo rds an y prac tice, any way of sp iritual life, which b rings ab out a u nion b etwee n one self individua lly and the object of one's worship or the object of one's quest. And in this way, in this sense of the term, the Hindus speak popularly of say `karma yo ga'. K arma means actio n or w ork. S o kar ma yo ga is the path of union with truth or with reality or with God through work, not just any work, but disin terested, selfless work for the go od, fo r the be nefit, of othe rs. And in the same way the Hindu tradition speaks of `bhak ti yoga'. Bhakti means faith and devotion, so bhakti yoga is the yoga of union with the ultimate, union with the p erson al Go d esp ecially thro ugh faith a nd thro ugh d evotion.

Then again in the more philosophical forms of Hinduism, such as the advice of Vedanta, the non-dualist Vedanta, yoga means the union of the lower self, the Jivatman, with the higher self, the Paratman, (?)or rather perh aps m ore c orrectly in the rec ognitio n of their b asic, their u nderlying, non-duality or non- difference.

So these are some of the meanings of the word yoga in the modern Indian, especially Hindu, context. But we find in the Buddhist context, especially in the context of Budd hist Tantra, we find that the word yoga has a rather different meaning. In Buddhism, especially in the Tantra, yoga, union, refers especially to the union in the enlightened mind and all along the stages of the path, the union of Wisdom, Prajna, awareness of reality, and Compassion, or universal love, universal loving-kindness. It also means in some more specifically T antric contexts still, it means the union of the experience of the void, sunyata, which is the general Mahayana word for ultima te reality, and bliss, e spec ially great b liss, or M ahasu kkha. And in this context, in this connection, the Tantric tradition usually employs the term Yuga Nada, which is translated and very well translated usually as two-in-one-ness, the two-in-one-ness of wisdom and compassion, the two-in-one-ness of the vo idness and supre me b liss. And this two-in-o ne-ness, this state of non-d uality as it were, of unity in difference and differen ce in un ity, this is the highe st goal o f the who le system of T antric practice.

Now summing up we may say that the Mula Y ogas, the foundation Yoga s, are so called because they are practices which initiate the process of integrating one part of our nature with another culminating in the state of perfect integration, integration of wisdo m and c omp assion, sunyata and b liss, at the highest level, which is enlighten men t or B udd haho od.

Now the title of this lecture is The Four Foundation Yo gas of the Tibetan Buddhist Tantra. Tantra means of course the Vajrayana, in other words the third of the three stages of development of Buddhism in Ind ia.

You may recollect, those who attended some of the earlier lectures, that we spoke at some length and more than o nce I thin k, of these three su ccessive ph ases o r stages o f deve lopm ent of B udd hism in In dia.

First of all there's what we call the Hinayana, the Little Vehicle or the Little Way, of emancipation. Now this is generally characterised as ethico-psychological Buddhism, or the ethico-psychological phase or stage in the de velop men t of Indian B udd hism. T his lasted abo ut five hun dred years.

And secondly we have the Mahayana, or the Great Vehicle, or the Great Way or Great Path to ema ncipation. And this is generally characterised as metaphysical devotional Buddhism or the metaphysical devo tional phase in the de velopm ent of Indian B uddhism . And this also lasted ab out five hundred years.

And thirdly and lastly we have the Vajrayana, which literally means the Diamond or the Adamantine Ve hicle or Path or Way to emancipatio n. And this is described, this is characterised as the phase or the stage of esoteric meditation and symbolic ritual. There's much which could be said upon these three phases or stages o f develo pme nt, these thr ee Y anas, the Hina yana, M ahaya na and Vajrayan a, but this is not the place to go in to all that.

As we know, as we have pointed out in earlier lectures, Tibetan Buddhism is a direct continuation, if you like a direct descendant, or if you like even a rebirth, a reincarnation, of Indian B udd hism, on the soil of Tib et. And in Tibetan Buddhism therefore all three Yanas are represented. In fact, as I did try to make clear some week s ago, Tib etan B udd hism, like I ndian Buddh ism of the Pala (?) d ynasty, is a synthesis of all three. It's a syn thesis of H inayana , M ahaya na and Vajrayan a. It's in a wa y a non -sectaria n traditio n.

To illustrate this we may say that the monastic discipline of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as its general Bud dhist teachin g, and the Ab idhar ma, the se all co me fro m the H inayana , especially the H inayana in its Sarvastivada form. T hen ag ain the su nyata p hiloso phy, the teachin g of the v oidn ess whic h und erlies all forms of Tibetan Buddhism, and the Bodhisattva Ideal, which is the spiritual ideal of all forms of Tibetan Buddhism, these come from the Indian Mahayana. And then the spiritual practices, the rites, the ceremonies, the meditations, the symbolism, of Tibetan Buddhism, these all come from the Vajrayana. So in this way we see that Tibetan Buddhism is a Triyana system of Buddhism.

Now the Fou r Fou ndation Y ogas constitute the intro duction, the e ntranc e if you like, to the V ajraya na, to the practice of the Adamantine or the Diamond Path or Way. So at this point a question arises, or a question may be raised. Tibetan spiritual prac tice, as distinct from doctrinal study and institutional life, Tibetan spiritual practice is mainly, if not exclusively, Tantric. Now the Vajrayana, or the Tantric phase of Buddhism, is the third, a nd the highest stage in the development of Buddhism. So the question which arises is, doe s this mea n that the spiritual practices of the Hinayana and the Mahayana are ignored in Tibetan Buddhism, inasmuch as Tibetan Buddhism gets started for all pr actical p urpo ses straigh t away with Vajrayana. It starts on the Four Foundation Yogas and then goes on to the Vajrayana. W ell it may seem as though they were neglected, the spiritual practices of the Hinayana and the Mahayana, but it isn't really so, because as we shall see these p ractice s, or rath er the m ost imp ortan t of them , are inco rpo rated into the M ula Yo gas them selves.

However all this is general, all this is introductory to the Mula Yogas, so perhaps it is time that we got on to the M ula Y ogas thems elves a nd d escrib ed the m ind ividua lly.

As must have been evident already, there are four of them, and I'm just going to enum erate first of all these four, and let you know briefly what they are.

The first Mu la Yo ga, the first Foundation Yoga, consists in The G oing For Refuge and Prostration. The second consists in The D evelopment of the Bodhichitta, or Will to Enlightenment. The third consists in The Meditation and Mantra Recitation of Vajrasattva and the fourth consists in The Offering of the Mandala.

In prev ious lec tures I've spok en of the four p rincipal scho ols of T ibetan Buddhism, that is to say the Nyingma pas, the K agyup as, the S akyap as and the G elugp as. W hen it comes to these four found ation yogas, these four mula yogas, we find that they're the same, these p ractices are the same , for all these schools.

Sometimes the order of practice is a little different and sometimes certain details vary, but substantially these fo ur are the sam e.

But so far as this evening's explanation is concerned I'm going to follow mainly the Nyingmapa tradition of the four mula yogas or four foundation yogas, not because I feel that the Nyingmapa tradition is right and that the others are wrong, not even because I feel that the Nyingmapa tradition is better and the others are perhaps a little worse, but more especially because my own personal connection in this resp ect hap pens to be mor e with the Nying map a versio n of these four m ula yogas. I'm not going to go in to variations of detail so far as the practice of the yogas is concerned as amon g the four schoo ls.

Now for the mula yogas individually. It won't be possible to give a complete description of these practices bec ause the y're muc h too com plex, e ven tho ugh b y Vajrayan a stand ards th ey're rath er simp le pra ctices.

Now first of all The G oing For Refuge and the Prostration. Going For Refuge, going for refuge to the Buddha, to the Dharma, to the Sangha, this is of course a very common practice in all schools of Buddhism, whether it's the Buddhism of Ceylon, or Thailand, or Tibet or Japan, one finds on all possible occasions peo ple `T aking the Re fuges' as it's ca lled, and G oing F or R efuge.

But though it's a very common practice all o ver the B udd hist world, one has also to say, one has also to recognise that the Going For Refuge . is n ot alwa ys taken v ery serio usly. I kno w that in India for instance, when there are pu blic m eetings, e ven m ass me etings, with various political figures on the platform and where there's a mainly non-Buddhist audience, some people still insist on giving the Refuges and getting everybody to recite them even though it has no significance. It's just recited as a sort of cha nt. Bu t this is really an abuse of the tradition.

In the Tantric Buddhism of Tibet on the contrary we find, not only that the Refuges are taken very seriously, but they're treated as an important spiritual practice in their own right, and this is how they come to figure, or the Go ing For R efuge and P rostration com es to figure in the Four M ula Yo gas.

Now as practised as the first of the M ula Yo gas as they are in the G oing Fo r Refuge and Prostration, three main elements and these are a visualisatio n, a rec itation an d the p rostration. An d these three m ain elem ents correspond to bo dy, spe ech a nd m ind. Y ou m ight have noticed in the course of the last few lectures, and even lectures which I've give n on o ther asp ects of B udd hism, that in Buddhism there's a constant reference to the distinc tion be tween bod y, speech and mind . Just as say the Christian tradition speaks of body, soul and spirit, in the same way the whole Buddhist tradition, not only that of Tibet, speaks of body, speech and mind. It's not just body, speech and mind in the literal sense, but we haven't got time to go in to that this evening. But these thre e, how soev er on e und erstand s them, ar e taken as exhausting the whole content of human, for want of a better word we call human personality. If we take our body, our speech and our mind, we've got us as it were. These are our three principal aspects, our three principal modes of functioning: the physical, the comm unicative, and the m ental or spiritual. So in any co mple te pra ctice, an y com plete spiritual practice, all three must be provided for. A nd this is why in the Going For Refuge and Prostration Practice there are these three elements: visualisation, which is something done by the mind, it's a sort of meditation, recitation, which is done by the speech, and prostration, which is done by the body. And in this way the w hole b eing, the whole perso nality, is involv ed.

Th is is one of the basic points of the Tantra, that it isn't enough to do something mentally, you've got to do it verb ally, you've got to d o it physic ally. Th e who le bein g, the wh ole p erson ality has got to be involved.

And this is, as I say, one of the main characteristics, one of the principal features, one of the dominant features, of all T antric p ractice .

Now first, the visualisation. So what is it a visualisation o f, this mental side, this mental element, in the Going For Refuge and the Prostration? This is the visualisation of what is known as The Refuge Tree. Now I'm sure you've all heard of the Refuges, but I don't suppose many of you have heard of a Refuge Tree, but this is what has to be visualised, a Refuge Tree. So what does a Refuge Tree look like? Because obviously if you don 't know what it looks like you can 't visualise it very easily. So I'm going to try to de scribe this, and I'm go ing to as k you n ot to so much fo llow m y word s as to try to sort of b uild up the picture within your o wn minds o f what the R efuge T ree lo oks like .

So you have to visualise first of all an enormous lotus flower, in fact a whole lotus plant. It has to be enormo usly big, as big as a great oak or a great elm, which is very, very big indeed. And there's one great thick central stem to this lotus and there are four as it were branches, rising out of the central stem, in the direction of the four cardinal points, north, south, east and west. So you've got the great central stem in the middle, and th en at the four ca rdina l points yo u've go t the four b ranch es. An d eac h of these five, that is to say, the central stem and each of the four branches, terminates in a gigantic lotus blossom, so that there are five flowers in all. So th is is what you have to visualise first of all, this enormous Refuge Tree, this great plant w ith these five enor mou s bloss oms .

Now when you've got that firm ly in your m ind, wh en you can se e that quite clea rly, then you direct your attention to the central lotus. And you should see, at the calyx of the flower, you should see the rows upon rows, the layers upo n layers o f petals, fo lded back , and the n right in the centre, as it were sitting on or in the calyx of that centr al lotus, one should visualise the founder of the tradition of practice, the tradition of Ta ntric practice, that is to say, to which one belongs. For the Nyingmap as of co urse this is Padmasambhava. For the K agyupas it's M ilarepa. For the G elugpas it's Tsongkapa and so on. B ut one visualises this figure, the founder of one's own particular tradition of Ta ntric practice, firm ly seated , right in the mid dle o f the calyx o f that centra l lotus.

So one visualises clearly, and not only visualises, but one thinks of that central figure seated there as b eing the embodiment of all the Buddhas, all spiritual perfections, all enlightenment, all wisdom, all compassion, all peace, all perfection, all concentrated in that figure, that is the sup reme emb odim ent, as it were, of o ne's highest spiritual ideal in all possible aspects, in all possible manifestations. So this is the next stage.

Then you go a little further. And you notice that the lotus has many tiers of petals, sort of folding back, more like a chrysanthemum than a lotus, but obv iously there are difficulties of representation. And then you visualise, underneath the figure of Padmasambhava or Milarepa, as the case may be, you visualise, one on top of the other as it were, one's other lamas or one's other gurus, terminating in one's own personal guru, and then above him but still below say Padmasambhava or Milarepa other gurus of the line, or other maste rs from whom one h as received instructio n, and so on .

And then lower down still one visualises, still in line with that central lotus, one visualises what are known as the four orders of Tantric deities: Buddhas ,Bodhisattvas, peaceful and wrathful, and so on, in other words, the deities of the four Tantras, the four classes of Tantra. And then lastly underneath them one visualises the da kinis and the dh arma palas .

Now you m ight be wond ering, what is this all ab out? And why do es one visualise in this way? It's pretty obvious why on e visualise s the founder of the lineage of Tantric spiritual practice, whether Padma sambhava or Milarepa, but why these others? Why the lama s? W hy the fou r ord ers of T antric deities? W hy the dakinis and dhar map alas? W ell these re prese nt the T antric o r Va jrayan ic, that is to say, the esoter ic aspe ct of the Three Refuges themselves. There are three exoteric Refuges, there are three esote ric Refuges and there are also three secret Refuges and three suchness Refuges. I think this is new grou nd to most peo ple, b ut this evening we are go ing on ly so far as th e three esoter ic Refuges.

The three exoteric Refuges are of course the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. The three eso teric counterp arts of these are first of all the Guru, who is the esoteric counterpart of the Buddha, then the deities of the pa th, which are so rt of arch etypal embodiments or symbols of spiritual experiences which are the esote ric aspects of the Dharma, and then the dakas and dakinis and dharmapa las, which represent the persons or even the sp iritual forces, if you like the occu lt forces in the co mpa ny of wh ich, or w ith the help of which one practises and follows the Path and they represent the esoteric aspect of the Sangha.

So in other word s it mean s that in line w ith that cen tral lotus yo u've go t the symb ols of the esoteric aspec ts of the three Refuges. Sitting on the calyx of the centra l lotus flower first of all you've got the founder of the who le line of Tantric practice and underneath him (in order) the esoteric, or rather the symbol of the esote ric aspect of the Buddha Refuge, the symbols of the esoteric aspect of the Dharma Refuge, symbols of the esoteric aspect of the Sangha Refuge. So in this way you've got your esoteric three Refuges lined up vertica lly underneath that cen tral figure o n the ce ntral, or o n the ca lyx of the c entral lo tus blo ssom .

Right, having dealt with the first lotus, let us go on to the other lotus blossoms. You'll remember that there's one lotus blossom right in front, which is the southern one as it were. Well on that you've got Sakya muni, the human, historical B uddha , with other historical Bud dhas, usually there are just thre e, with the Budd ha of the past, Dipankara, to the left, and the Buddha of the future, Maitreya, on the right. So therefore, on the lotus blossom to the south as it were you have these representatives of the human and historical Bud dhas.

Then on the lotus to the left, that is the left o f onese lf, there are the Bodhisattvas, usually the eight principal or ten prin cipal B odh isattvas. A nd the y repre sent the S angha, the sp iritual community, in the purely M ahaya nistic sense . And they includ e, say, Av alokite svara, M anjusri, and so on.

Then the rear lotus, o r the lotus to the no rth beh ind the centra l lotus, on e sees a heap of sacred b ook s. And this of co urse re prese nts the D harm a, the sac red sc ripture s.

And then o n the lotu s to the right, the eas tern lotus as one m ay say, one sees an asse mblage of Arhants, those who'v e gaine d enlightenment or liberation for themselves alone. And they constitute the Sangha, the spiritual community, in the Hinayana sense. ...... sense. So they include the great arhants disciples of the Buddha like Sarip utra, M ogga llana an d so o n.

There are a number of other details which could be gone into regarding the refuge tree and the lotuses and so on , but I don't think we'd b etter go into all that this e vening .

Now the whole tree, the whole tree, with the central lotus and the four other lotuses, with the central figure of the founder of the whole line of p ractice, and the lam as, the deities of the Tan tric path, the dakinis, dakas, dharmapalas, then the Buddhas of the three periods of time, the Bod hisattvas, the Arhants, the sacred books and a number of other figures to o, these all have to be visualised fairly clearly o r, if possib le, quite clearly and q uite vivid ly before one begins. If one is actually doing the practice one sits as for meditation and builds up this mental picture in one's mind first, this picture of this Refuge Tree.

Tibetans themselves have got, are familiar with the appearance of the Refuge Tree, from thangkas, from the painted scrolls, it's a quite popular subject. It isn't easy to get hold of copies of this particular painted scroll because so many figures are involved and they have to be so tiny, that it's an enormous amount of work for the artist, and very few artists are re ady to unde rtake ju st one sin gle than gka o f this kind, which may keep them busy fo r mo nths and mon ths and mon ths. I rem emb er I did mana ge to p rocu re on e onc e in Kalimpong, but it was begged from me from one of my friends, in fact it was the present Tomo G eshe Rimpoche, who wanted it for a newly founded monastery, and as he didn't have one I gave it to him. B ut I do have a print, and in this c onne ction I m ight me ntion tha t we shall be sho wing afte r the last, after the eighth of these talks, some slides, some colour slides, illustrating some of these things, including the Refuge Tree. So one will have an o ppo rtunity of visu alising, pe rhap s a little mo re clea rly then tha n per haps one is able to do now.

So this is the mental element in the whole practice, the whole practice of Going For Refuge and Prostration.

Th is is what o ne visua lises. On e visualise s the Re fuge T ree. O ne visualises, one has the feeling of and feeling for all these great spiritual figures, all these symbols, all these archetypal forms, which together mak e up th e con tent as it wer e of that R efuge T ree.

Now the verbal element in the practice consists in the repetition aloud of a formula expressive of o ne's Going For Refuge to the founder of the whole tradition as the embodiment of all the Refuges. In other words, if one follo ws the N yingma pa tra dition, if the centra l figure of the Refuge Tree is say Padmasambhava, then one's formula expresses one's taking refuge in Padmasambhava as the embod iment of all the Refuges, as the embodiment of the Buddha Refuge, Dharma Refuge, Sangha Refuge, and so on.

Th is formula naturally varies a little so far as the words are concerned, from one tradition to another.

Bec ause if you follow the Kagyupa tradition, well your centra l figure will be M ilarepa, you take refuge in him as the embodiment of all Refuges, a nd so on. S o this is the verbal element in the whole practice, the repetition of this formula expressive of your going for refuge to the founder of the line, the founder of the lineage of spiritual practice, of T antric practice, as em bod iment of all the refuges.

Now finally there's the physical element in the practice and this is represented by the prostration, the prostration, full length prostration. As I've said, the body occupies an important place in the Vajrayana. In some forms of B udd hism o ne finds that the b ody is d epre ciated , as in som e form s of prim itive, of early Christia nity. Sometimes the body's referred to as this animated corpse and this bucket of filth that you're carrying arou nd with you an d pic turesq ue exp ression s of that kind. B ut not in the Vajrayana. In the Vajrayana it's a sin to speak in dispraise of the body and the senses generally. Because they say that the human body is the vehicle for emancipation. The human body can become a Buddha bo dy, so therefo re it's very impor tant, it's very p recio us, it's very prized . It's not to b e loo ked dow n upo n and not to b e des pised .

So the Tibetans have this very definite, this very positive idea, and the Tantra has in especial this very definite, this very p ositive id ea, that the bod y also m ust be in volve d, that yo ur spiritual pra ctice is meaningless if it doesn't involve the body, if the body doesn't participate. It mustn't be just a mental thing, not even a mental plus verbal thing, but a mental plus verbal plus physical thing. And the Tibetans believe that religio n must be p hysical as well as ve rbal a nd m ental.

And therefo re, as o ne mig ht have expe cted, T ibetan s spiritual life tends to be ve ry, very strenuous. Not for the Tibe tan the sitting down in a cosy corn er and read ing a book about the spiritual life. He doesn't look at it like that . And I remember often hearing from the lips of my Tibetan friends a little proverb which said, `Without difficulty, no religion'. If it's easy, then it isn't a religious practice. If it's difficult it probably is. If it's very difficult, it's probably quite a good practice. But they don't take it easy. And you find that Tibe tans' spiritual life is very strenuous and it involves a very great deal of physical exertion. This is of course partly on account of the very atmosphere, the temperature of T ibet - after all, if you've got snow outside your monastery you need something strenuous to keep you warm, but this is only part of the reason, part of the explanation. They feel that the body also must be involved and if the body is not involved, is not doing something o f a spiritual nature, then you're not really seriously practising. And this is why you find Tibetans doin g things like prostrating the mselv es all the w ay from Lhasa to B odh Gaya, som ething w ell, it's a distan ce of a bou t, what, five, six hundred miles. W e'd think this perfectly crazy! Well, the Tibetans don 't, they take this very, very seriously indeed, and they respect very highly people who d o this sort of thing.

So therefore in this Going Fo r Refuge and Prostration p ractice, you do n't just visualise, you do n't just repeat this formula of Going For Refuge, you also prostrate, you fling yourself down full length in front of the visualised Refuge Tree with all its lamas and deities and so on. And the prostration is the full one. There are various forms of prostration. In India they usually have the abbreviated one, but not the Tibetans. They always go the whole hog. They have the full one, right down on your hands and knees, and flat on your face in fact and with your arms shooting out in front of you. They do it in fact rather dramatically and not to say pow erfully and impre ssively.

And all these three, that is to say the visualisation, the repetition of the form ula and the pr ostration, all these three have to be d one simultan eously. Of co urse to get into the way of it, just to get the hang of it, you can practise separately, but when you do it properly, you do altogether. You keep the mental picture in your mind, you repeat the formula and yo u fling you rself do wn. T here's a presc ribed way of d oing this. A nd in this way mind, sp eech and b ody a re all co -ope rating. M ind, speech and body all practising. Mind, speech and body are all being influenced, all participating in the particular practice.

And there is a certa in effect. It's very difficult, in fact it's imp ossible, to de scribe the effect and this is known only to those w ho ha ve had some exp erienc e of this so rt of pra ctice. W ell perhaps I should mention that according to tradition you have to do this whole thing one hundred thousand times, one lakh of times.

And they say that if you're doing it full time it'll take you about three mon ths. But if you're just able to do a few hundred a day, which isn't really very much, though it takes maybe a couple o f hours, then of course it'll take you severa l years. But the idea is to do as many as you possibly can. And believe me, when you've done these, even a few, the effect is quite tangible and sometimes even quite remarkable.

In case this all sounds very, very difficult I should mention that the Tibetans themselves do also follow the tradition of taking up o ther pr actices , Vaj rayana prac tices, be fore yo u've actually finished your preliminary practices. In oth er wo rds yo u can b e add ing to yo ur total o f prostrations - yo u migh t have g ot up say to 10,456, but you can at the same time say be doing the meditation on Tara, on Manjusri, or even something more advanced than that and as it were continuing an d trying to com plete yo ur pre liminary p ractice s while you have already embarked upon the Tantric or Vajrayanic path proper. This is perhaps a concession to the corrup tions of mod ern times, but the T ibetans themselves a ll do this.

All right. One may say about the Going For Refuge and P rostration in conclusion that it represents the Hinayana compone nt in the Four Foundation Y ogas. The whole of the Hinayana in a way can be summed up in the Going For Refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. So the Going For Refuge and the Pro stration practice as the first of the M ula Y ogas repr esents the ir force within a sp ecifically V ajraya nic or T antric context, the Hina yana com pone nt in the whole group of practices.

Now secondly we come to the development of the Bodhichitta, or the Will to Enlightenment. And one develops this first of all by develop ing comp assion for all living beings. This is a sentiment or an aspiration ...... which resounds or reverberates throughout the whole of Bud dhism, the development of love and compassion for all living b eings. B ut the T ibetan s here a s elsewh ere, they give their own particu lar twist if you like, their own particular colouring to this universal Budd hist idea. They say that should look upon, one shou ld regard, all living b eings as being just like o ne's ow n par ents, on e's own moth er, one's own father.

Because the Tibetans, like most other Budd hists, they believe very strongly in rebirth and reincarnation, and they believe that if you look far back enough, that everybody you know, everybody you meet, has at some time o r other , in som e pre vious life o r other , been your m other or you r father.

So the Tib etans a ttach a g reat d eal of im por tance to this. In p ractice they em phasise it very, ve ry strong ly and for Tibetans this is a very, very vivid and very real thing. To us of course, even if we do happen to be Bud dhists, sometimes the idea of rebirth and reincarnation, though we accept it intellectually perhaps, w ith more or less o f reserva tion, it do esn't rea lly get into o ur bo nes. B ut in the ca se of the Tib etans it is rea lly in their bones and their blood and they feel it very strongly, and if they are serious minded, if they practise any kind of Tantric exercise, they can actually feel that the people that they meet, at one time, in the r emo te past, were as closely related to them as that, and therefore they feel that they should be kind to them, they shou ld love them, the y should be affec tionate towar ds them , and tre at them properly a nd d ecen tly.

So therefo re the T antric tra dition e mph asises tha t inasmu ch as o ne has this love, o ne has this compassion for all living beings, all sentient beings, one should develop the resolve to help them, to deliver them from suffering. And the T ibetan tradition espe cially em phasises, it's only if you feel for others as though they were your o wn pa rents, that yo u'll feel the urge, really to help them in difficulties. And they give a rather bea utiful sort o f illustration fo r this.

They say that suppose one day you're going through the bazaar. This can be a common experience in Tibet as in India, you're going through the bazaar, and there are people selling vegetables and all sorts of other things, pots and pans all around you, and there's a noise and a crying of goods of various kinds, and maybe as you go throug h the m arket yo u notice that in some corner there's some disturbance going on, some sort of a row. This often happens in bazaars, no-one takes too much notice, not until people start killing one another.

But for some reason or other you sort of stop, and you just look and you see there's quite a crowd and there seems to be someone in the middle who's sort of getting the worst of it. So just out of curiosity perhaps you think, well let me go an d hav e a loo k. So you d raw ne arer a nd yo u see tha t there's a g reat cro wd o f peo ple and for some re ason or other they're beating and thrashing someone in the middle, who's down on the floor. I mea n, kicking and k nocking o ver the head , so you think we ll, it's not too goo d, bu t anyway it's none of my business sort of thing, well anyway, out of curiosity you go a little nearer, and then you see, well, it's rather a pity, it's a woman that they're beating, all these big, hefty men, it's a woman, in fact it's an old woman that's being be aten. A nd yo u get a little b it nearer, you ge t a little bit intereste d, you 're still not very interested, but as you get into the throng, as you really look, you see, good heavens, this is my own mother being beaten. And you didn't know your mother ap parently has gon e to the baza ar and there she is, she's got into some trouble and she's being beaten. So at once you feel tremendous compassion, tremendous love for the mother wells up in the heart then, because you recognise that the p erson who is being beate n, the pe rson w ho is suffer ing is nea r and dear to you.

So therefore the T ibetan spiritual masters say that if you can see in each suffering human being your own mother or your ow n father, or some one nea r and de ar to you, then the love, then the c omp assion will well up in your heart, otherwise not. And this is why they emphasise this so much, because we can see so much suffering all around us, we can see people having their heads cut off, or we can read in the newspaper that 70 peo ple we re killed in an ac ciden t, or 25 peo ple we re killed in a fire, or se veral h undr ed killed yesterday in Vietn am. W e just turn over to the ne xt pag e in the newspaper and look at the sports results. And we do n't think anything of it because no-one near and dear to us is involved. This is why we are so, in a sense, callou s.

But the T ibetan tradition says on e shouldn't look like that. One should try to see, try to feel, all living beings as deeply, as intimately re lated w ith oneself. So th ey make use in this connection of this idea of karma, rebirth, reincarnation, and they say, well, try to feel, try to look back and try to act a s thoug h as in fact is the case, all the people, all the beings, with whom you are at present in contact, are in fact your own reincarnated mothers, fathers and so on of p revious lives, of previou s existences.

So when one sees all the bein gs around one, all the suffering beings around one, in this way, in this light, as on e's own parents as it were reborn, then out of compassion one develops a tremendous urge to deliver them, to lead them o n the righ t path, to lead them to Buddh ahood, to lead them to enlighten men t. And therefore one make s a sort o f vow, a sort of re solve, a sort o f resolutio n, that on e will gain e nlightenm ent, gain Budd hahood, through the practice of the Vajrayana, through the practice of the Tantra, so that one may function as a spiritual teac her in the world .

So this mula yo ga, this foun dation yoga, consists mainly in the repetition, like the repetition of a mantra, of a formula expressive of one's resolve, of one's determination, to gain enlightenment, to gain Buddhahood, for the sa ke and for the b enefit of a ll living bein gs. And this is of course the famous B odh isattva V ow.

So one may say that in brief the second of these mula yogas consists in the repetition again and again and again in a certa in way, ac cord ing to the instructio ns of the teacher, of a formula expressive of the Bod hisattva Vow, one's determination to gain enlightenment, not just for the sake of one's own personal emancipation, but for the good and welfare and benefit for the whole world of sentient beings. So this too is to be repe ated a nd re cited o ne hun dred thousa nd times.

And you'll notice of course that the Vajrayana is very fond of repetition. This is one of the gr eat features of the Vajrayan a, that they d o this ten th ousa nd times, do that a hun dred thousa nd times, do that a million times, over and over and over again. And the reason for this is that there's a tremendous need to penetrate, to break through if you like, into the unconscious mind. Usually we just repeat something once and we think we've u nderstoo d it and we pu t it aside. T hat's that. I vow to gain enlightenme nt for the b enefit of a ll sentient beings. What could be easier than that? That's the Bodhisattva Vow, you've repeated it, you've recited it, you've tak en it. But there's n ot even a scratch on the surface of the mind. So therefore the Vajrayana says, go on repe ating it. G o on repe ating it. Say it a th ousa nd times, ten tho usand times, a hundred thousand times, a million times, and maybe, when you've done it maybe a hundred, two hundred thousand times, the meaning will begin to percolate, begin as it were to soak down below the level of the conscious mind into the u nconscious mind and start influencing it there where it really matters. So a hund red tho usand repe titions of the Bo dhisattva V ow at the time o f the actua l prac tice.

And in between, as it's called, in between two sessions of actual practice of the foundation yogas, one shou ld reflec t in a certa in way.

One should reflect that with every out-go ing bre ath that o ne br eathes, that with ev ery ou t-going b reath one's good qualities, such as they are, fall upon others like moonlight and confer happiness upon them. In other word s one should feel that one's effect, one influence, upon others is beneficent and positive, just like that of the m oon light. He re of co urse o bvio usly we've got a re minisce nce o f Indian tradition because in India after the heat of the day at night the moonlight is cool a nd so ft and b eautiful an d pe ople app reciate it very much. So your influence on others should be like that. You should fall like moonlight upon others and your whole influence should be soft and gentle and beneficent. So those who practise the mula yogas have to ask them selves (? ) wheth er they ha ve up on o thers the effect, would your b est friend com pare you with moo nlight? Y ou ha ve to ask your self that qu estion.

And then with every in-going breath one should feel that the sins of all beings, the weaknesses, the imperfections of all beings, are entering one's own body and are being absorbed into, annihilated in, the W ill to Enligh tenme nt itself.

And also if one has time one should practise the Brahma V iharas, the four sublime abodes, that is to say, love, com passio n, symp athetic jo y and e quanimity. An d these are kn own to mo st of you I think, no need to describe them in detail. So the Brahma V iharas are incidentally common practices in both the Hinayana and the M ahaya na.

So we may say that the deve lopm ent of the Bodhichitta, the Will to ...... Will to Enlightenment, and the repetition of the Bod hisattva Vow represents (?) the Mahayana, the Great Vehicle or Great W ay component in the Four Found ation Yo gas.

Now we come onto 3) The Meditation and Mantra Recitation of Vajrasattva. This mula yoga may be considered the mo st impo rtant of the four foundation yogas generally. It's purely Tantric. The Going For Refuge and P rostration rep resents a Hin ayanic com pon ent within the four mula yogas, the development of the Bodhichitta, the Will to Enlightenment, represents a more Mahayanic compone nt, but the third mula yoga, the Meditation and Mantra Recitation of Vajrasattva, represents the purely Tantric component, the pure ly Tantric element in the w hole g roup of pra ctices. A nd this is un derta ken fo r, what the tradition calls, Pur ification o f Sins.

I remember in this connection that I knew in Kalimpong a French woman who became a Buddhist nun and she had b een a Catho lic. And she said as a C atholic she heard a lot abo ut sin. B ut she said it wasn 't until she started prac tising the V ajraya na that she really heard about sin and about purification from sin! And the Vajrayana doe s attach g reat imp ortan ce to this, and p laces a great emph asis on it. Its conceptio n of sin isn't quite that of course of C hristianity, but it does reco gnise in a very realistic way that our minds are encumbered by all sor ts of mur k, all sorts o f dark a nd ra ther dirty things that w e'd rather forget about. But unfortunately if we are to get anyw here w ith our sp iritual pra ctice we have to drag them a ll out into the light of day, into the light of the Budd ha, and dissolve them. And at least to recognise that they're there and see them clearly, and face up to them, before they can be purified. Purification is possible, but the condition (present?) is that at least w e reco gnise the need for purification. So this Vajrasattva yoga as it's also called, the meditation an d mantra re citation of Vajra sattva, is undertaken for pu rification from sins.

First of all, a few words about Vajrasattva himself. `Vajrasattva' usually is translated as the Diamond or Adamantine Being. V ajra is the diam ond or the thunde rbo lt, sattva is be ing. T his'll do fo r the pr esent, we'll see a little later on what it really means. Iconographically Vajrasattva is a Budd ha in the form o f a Bodhisattva. And so metimes V ajrasattva is called the sixth Bu ddha . Sixth Bud dha me ans the esote ric Buddha, the hidden Buddha if you like and the Tantric tradition speaks of a sixth Buddha, much as we might spea k of a sixth dime nsion, so methin g very m ysteriou s soun ding w hich is almo st a con tradiction in terms, so methin g which is just a sor t of `x' qua ntity which yo u do n't really ap preh end.

Now to understand why Vajra sattva is spoken o f as the sixth Budd ha, not as the tenth or the eleve nth and so on, to understand why Vajrasattva is spoken of as the sixth Buddha, we have to refer to the scheme of the five Buddhas. The five Buddhas - I've spoken about them at length on other occasions - the five Buddhas are the transcendental counterparts, in personal Buddha form, of the five aggregates, the five constituents of conditioned existenc e. T hey're the five archetypal Buddhas if you like, the five ideal Buddhas, so that you've got five different colours: there's a red one and a yellow one and a green one and a blue one and a white one, and when they are depicted in the mandala, when they are d epicte d in the c ircle of sym bolic forms, you get one in the centre, one Buddha, one archetypal Budd ha in the centre, and one at each of the four cardinal points. And the usual arrangement, the usual arrangement is to have Akshobya, which means the Imperturbable One, the dark blue Buddha, in the centre. And then to the north you've got Am ogha siddh i, Infallible Success, the green Buddha, to the south Ratnasambhava, the Jewel-Born Buddha, or the yellow Buddh a, to the west Amitabha, the Infinite Light, the red Buddha, and to the east Vairocana, the Illumina tor, the w hite B udd ha. So in the cen tre the d ark b lue B udd ha, then to the no rth the green Buddha, to the so uth the yellow B udd ha, to the west the re d B udd ha, to the east the white Budd ha. The names don't really matter very much, it's the principle which is important. The central Bud dha is a synthesis of the other four B uddha s. The other four Budd has represent fragmented aspects of the main, the central figure. Just as white light is a sort o f synthesis o f all the colours, the seven colo urs of the rainbo w, in the same way the central Buddha figure, in this case Akshobya, the dark blue Buddha, the Impertu rbab le One, is the sort of synthesis, the integration if you like of all the other Bud dha form s and B uddha aspects.

Now Vajrasattva is the esoteric aspect of the central or the fifth Budd ha. You can only represent or depict Vajrasattva in the mandala by imagining him as being behind the central Buddha in a different dimension as it were. So he's the sixth Buddha, sixth not in the sen se of b eing added to the five, but as it were standing outside the plane on which the five Buddha differentiation is made.

Now it's one of the fundamental principles of the Tantra and of Tibetan Buddhism generally that all the Bud dhas, all the Bodhisattvas, dakas, dakinis, dharmapalas and so on are to be found within one's own mind, not within the ordinary individual mind, so-called subjective mind. To find them within one's own mind one has to go deeper than that. So Vajrasattva also, the sixth Buddha also, is to be found within the depths of one's own mind. He is to be found at a po int beyond sp ace, beyo nd time. V ajrasattva repre sents, really represents or symbolises the primeval purity of one's own mind. One's own mind in its origina l, beyond spac e and beyo nd time pur ity, its transcendental purity, its absolute purity. This is what Vajrasattva represents or symbolises. In other words, Vajrasattva symbolises the truth that whatever you might have done on the phenomenal plane, whatever sins you might have committed, however low you might have sunk in the sca le of being and consciousness, your basic mind, your true nature if you like to use that expression, remains pure, remain untouched, remains unsullied, that in the depths of your being, whatever you m ight have do ne or not do ne, you are p ure.

Now obviously this sort of teaching can be misunderstoo d. It's a deep ly metap hysical tea ching, n ot just a psych olog ical teac hing. B ut in T ibet at lea st in the old days m isunde rstand ing was unlikely.

Now the purpo se of the whole Vajrasattva yoga, the purpose of this third mula yoga, is to re-integrate us with our own innate purity, to as it were purify our sins or purify us of our sins by the realisation, the recognition that underneath the sins there is an immaculate purity of our own mind which has never been touched and n ever b een tain ted. In o ther wo rds, yo u purify yourself fro m you r sins, which you acknowledge your sins on their own level by realising that in the depths of your being you have never sinned, that you are primevally pure. This is the essence of this whole practice.

So how does one proceed? How does one do it? First one visualises Vajrasattva, another visualisation exercise. One visualises im med iately above one's o wn head, as brilliant wh ite, like snow, youthful - the texts say sixteen years of age, which is supposed to the ideal age so far as beauty is concerned - and with a smiling expression. And then one visualises the bhija, the seed syllable, Hum, blue in colour at the centre of the heart o f this visualised Vajrasattva figure a nd sur roun ded by the lette rs of the, or rath er the syllables of the hundred-syllabled mantra. T his requires a little explanation if one is not to misund erstand. T hese visualised letters all stand upright, and the circle of letters, the hundred letters (sic) of the Vajrasattva mantra, they stand uprigh t aroun d the c entral b hija. T hey're not as it were laid down flat, as on a clock face.

It's rather as though you sort of swivelled the clock face and put it flat, horizontal, and then you stood all the figure s up in the ir place s. Th is would repre sent the so rt of arra ngem ent whic h one has in m ind he re.

So one visualises, first of all this white figure, youthful, smiling, and so on, visualises the bhija, the seed mantra, visualises the hundred syllables of the hundred-syllabled m antra around it, all white, all emitting light and so o n, and then from these one visualises a stream of what is described as milk-like nectar which descends from these mantras and descends into one's body through th e central aperture and which goes right throug h the b ody a nd wa shes o ut all sins. So on e has to visualise this a nd fee l this. And with a little practice you can actually feel this sort of cold or cool sensation coming, descending into the top of the head and then flow ing do wn thro ugh the whole bod y and even filling the whole body. And one has to feel that one beco mes e ventua lly like, or o ne's bo dy becomes like, a crystal vase filled with curds. T his is a traditional comparison. You feel so clean, so pu re, so purified that this is the sort of experience . Or it's also said yo u feel like c lear, vo id light.

After you've done this practice, after you've visualised the Vajrasattva figure, the mantras and the flow of this milk-like ne ctar thro ugh o ne's who le system o ne feels completely purified, transparent like glass or crystal or even like void and pure light. And all this has to be visualised. And all these visualisatio n exerc ises hav e this coresponding psychological effect.

And having done the visualisation one then recites the hundred-syllabled ...... mantra one hundred thousand times - not at one sitting of course, you can do it two or three time s or ten times or a hundred times at one sitting and then add up the total day by day or week by week.

The mantra itself by the way, the Vajrasattva mantra, which is a very famous mantra, expresses the idea of re-integration with one's own original Vajrasattva nature. At the end of the practice there are several other visualisation exercises, but I don't propose to go into that this evening.

At the end of all the practices Vajrasattva, the visualised Vajrasattva, is dissolved b ack into the vo id, into the sunyata. This is the usual procedure at the end of a visualisation exercise, as we shall see in greater detail next week.

W ell fourthly an d lastly the O ffering of the M and ala. The mandala is not the same here as the circle of symbo lic forms. Her e a ma ndala mea ns a sym bolic al rep resentation o f the entire u niverse acco rding to ancient Indian cosmological traditions. The ancient Indians had their own views about the nature, the constitution, of the physical universe, so the mandala is a symbolical representation of the universe according to these ancient Indian traditions. And the prac tice co nsists in offering this ma ndala, offering this symbolical repre sentatio n of the whole physical cosmos as it were to the Three Jewels, the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha, in their exoteric as well as in their esoteric aspects. And these three, the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sang ha, in these two aspe cts, exoteric and eso teric, are to be visualised m ore or less as in the Going For Refuge and Prostration practice except that here there is no tree.

So how d oes o ne do this? First of all one per forms the sevenfold puja . Yo u're all familiar with the seven fold puja which we celebrate after the lecture every evening here and on other occasions, b ut in this context it's not the o rdina ry M ahaya na sev enfold puja , but it's a spe cial esoteric Tantric version of that seven fold puja . There's no time to e xplain all these things at the moment. And having performed that Ta ntric ve rsio n o f th e se ve nfo ld pu ja on e b uild s up an d o ne offe rs th e M andala. The M andala, the symbolical representation of the universe, is made up of thirty-seven parts and one constructs it on a circular copper ba se by he aping rice and then putting rin gs aro und, rin gs of co ppe r or silve r and so on , until one has built up a sort of co nical or sort of pyramid-like structure with different tiers and different heaps of rice which one places at intervals all around the foundation and also at higher levels and repre sent different elements in the physical univ erse, an d on e has to bear these in m ind an d rep eat their n ame s when one is building up this partic ular mode l as it were. It's a ll too co mplic ated to desc ribe in d etail.

But there are several ways of offering. The usual way is that when one has built up the mandala, using the copper or silver base and h eap ing with rice and adding more tiers and heaping them with rice and putting something symbolical on the top, the usual method is that one lifts it up in one's hands and recites various mantras and various verses expressive of one's offering up of the entire universe to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sa ngha. And the whole thing of co urse has to be done o ne hundre d thousand times! Incidentally, I must interpose here just a little comment that amongst the slides which I hope we shall be showing at the end of the or after the last lecture in the series, there will be one slid e showing a sim ple form, a simple version of this mandala model, complete with rice and so on, so you'll know exactly what it looks like.

Now the meaning of the practice. T he one w ho is practising, the one wh o is doing the four m ula yogas, wishes to gain enlightenmen t, Budd hahoo d, for the sake of all living beings. In other wo rds he wishes, or she wishes, to beco me a B uddha . W ell for this purpose an e normo us accum ulation of what is techn ically called merit or punya is necessary. And it's axiomatic for Buddhism in all its forms that merit or punya is gained by dana, by giving, by generosity. This is in a way the basic, the cardinal Buddhist virtue, to give.

And this is one o f the mo st wond erful features of life in B udd hist coun tries that everybod y is so generous, they so rea dily share with you w hateve r they've g ot. If you visit someone, if you go to their home, at once you must b e offere d at lea st tea, if possible a whole meal, or some little gift, and if you go to see someone you must take something along with you, not go empty-handed. So this is a great characteristic of Budd hism everywhere, dana, because it's a means to punya, spiritual merits and so on.

Now if it's meritorious just to offer a cup of tea or a little money, or if it's meritorious to give one's time or one's energy, or if it's meritorious say to offer a monastery or a temple, how much meritorious it would be to offer the whole universe? To offer absolutely everything? Well how muc h mer it you'd g ain from that! And of course Buddhism teaches, especially in the Mahayana form, that it's the intention that counts. The sincere mental offering is the real offering. In all the religions of the world there are versions of the story of the wido w's migh t. It's not wh at you g ive, it's the will to give that co unts. So this is the way in which m erit is accu mulate d. Y ou m entally, with sincerity, with devotion, you offer up the whole universe, a symbolical representation of the whole material world, in all its levels, all its layers, all its aspects, all its features, with all its treasures, and yo u try to de velop the gen uine sp iritual feeling that if everyth ing was yours, yo u'd offer it all to the B udd ha, you 'd offer it all to the Dharma, you'd offer it all to the Sangha. And in this way you accum ulate spiritual merits.

Of course it is very important that this shouldn't become a formula or a formality. One must genuinely feel that on offering the mandala you are offering up absolutely everything, that even if you becam e the richest man in the wo rld, no need to me ntion na mes, b ut even if you becam e the rich est man in the wo rld, you 'd devote it all to Buddhism, all to the Buddha, all to the Dharma, all to the Sangha, or even if you became master of the whole universe, well you would be able to think of nothing better to do with it than offer ing it to the B udd ha. So me B udd hist kings in the past in a very gra ndio se way a ctually offe red the ir whole kingdom to the Buddha. Sometimes they've taken it back the next day, but that's neither here nor there! But you get the feeling , you ge t the idea , this will to give, this will to surre nder, the will to offer up. This is what the Offering of the M andala rea lly signifies or really symbolises.

So these are the Fou r Fou ndation Y ogas. And as I said at the beginning they're the basis of Tibetan spiritual practice. And unless we know them, we really understand nothing, or very little at best, of Tibetan spiritual life. As I've said they're usually regarded as preparatory to the practice of the Vajrayana as a whole, the practice of Tantric Buddhism, but it is also said that any one of them, whether the Going For Refuge and Pro stration, or the Development of the Bodhichitta, or the practice of the Vajrasattva visualisation and mantra recitation, or the Offering of the Mandala, any one of them if thoroughly practised, deeply and sincere ly and continuously practised, will bring one very, very near to enlightenment, especially it is said the third mula yo ga, the M editatio n and M antra R ecitation of V ajrasa ttva.

Perhaps it isn't necessary for me to say anything more. In this connection perhaps all that remains is for us to prac tise. And even if we con fine our selves to the co ntent of this lecture, we'll pro bab ly have e noug h to keep us busy for quite a long time to come.


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