Receiving Initiation

The first of the general uncommon preliminaries, as I have mentioned, is receiving tantric initiation. To practice the Six Yogas of Naropa, we need to receive the four complete initiations—vase, secret, wisdom, and word—of a great initiation of Highest Yoga Tantra. Merely receiving an oral transmission of a practice is not sufficient. Since the Six Yogas of Naropa are closely connected with Heruka Chakrasamvara and Hevajra, they are the best initiations to receive.

Lama Je Tsongkhapa mentions that before giving Gampopa teachings on the Six Yogas, Milarepa asked him, “Have you received initiation?” When Gampopa replied that he had, Milarepa gave him the commentary. Lama Tsongkhapa cites here another quotation from an ancient tantric text, The Diamond Rosary Tantra, which

says that initiation is essential, that it is the root of realizations, and that receiving tantric teachings without an initiation causes both the teacher and the disciple to go to the lower realms. By showing that all the great lineage gurus advised their disciples to first receive initiation, Lama Tsongkhapa proves that initiation is a necessary preliminary to the Six Yogas of Naropa.

What is initiation? It is the beginning of the experience of meditation and concentration, of penetration into the nature of the reality of all phenomena. Initiation leads us into the mandala of a deity and into the totality of the experience of that deity. It is an antidote to the dissatisfied, samsaric, fanatical, dualistic mind. During initiation we should completely let go of our preconceptions and fixed ideas of who we are, of our limited self-image. Instead, we need to identify with the wisdom-mind of the deity, which is our own perfect potential.

The tantric teachings place much emphasis on great bliss as the basis of the initiation experience. Of course, if you don’t have blissful experiences in your daily life, it will be difficult to experience bliss in your meditation—but we all experience happiness and bliss to some extent. The tantric teachings show us how to work with and expand our natural physical and mental resources of pleasure, and eventually how to unify bliss with the wisdom that understands emptiness and achieve liberation.

Initiation does not mean that a guru gives you some incredible power. You already have the qualities of profound wisdom and great bliss within you; initiation simply activates them.

The quality of the initiation you receive does not depend on the guru. It depends on you. The lama giving the initiation must have received the lineage of the initiation and done the basic retreats, but the important point is the disciple’s attitude. If you are motivated by the sincere wish to transform yourself so that you will be able to benefit others, you should receive the initiation.

It is important to have a dedicated attitude. In fact, according to Buddhist psychology, unless you dedicate yourself to others, you will never be satisfied. Instead you will be bored and lonely. It is logical that dedication to others brings you the satisfaction that you crave. To receive an

initiation in order to achieve some kind of power for your own ego is not good; but to do so in order to dedicate yourself to others and thereby achieve something for yourself is totally appropriate.

You should visualize that you are receiving the initiation not from an ordinary human being but from the mandala deity. During a Heruka Chakrasamvara initiation, for example, you should see the lama as Guru Heruka, with a body of infinitely blue, radiant light.

Even though a hundred people might participate in an initiation, they do not all have the same experience. Each person experiences the initiation according to their own level of skill and personal development. Actually receiving the initiation depends on the person’s mind, not on their bodily participation. As I mentioned, it depends on their ability to let go of their limited self-image.

Initiation is a serious business. Naropa had to wait twelve years and perform outrageous feats before Tilopa would give him an initiation. In ancient times initiation would not be given in public to large groups of people as they often are nowadays. Only a few people would be allowed to attend at one time. And

the four initiations would not be given all at once as they are now. Disciples would receive the first part, then go away and digest it. When they had reached that particular level in their practice, they would then come back to receive the next level of the initiation. It is much easier for us to receive initiation nowadays.

Lama Tsongkhapa emphasizes that during initiation we should go slowly: penetrating, meditating, concentrating. We shouldn’t be too concerned if our meditation during an initiation seems to be only at the level of imagination and not the actual experience. Simply imagining the experience plants seeds in

the field of our consciousness, and these seeds will slowly grow. It is just like the story of the hamburger: first someone had to imagine it, then gradually it manifested in the American culture.

As you come to understand the process of tantric initiation, you will discover the real meaning of tantra. The initiation process, in fact, embodies the actual experience of the stages of tantric realization, from the beginning right up to the stage of mahasiddha attainment. The vase initiation emphasizes

evolutionary yoga practice, the secret initiation emphasizes the illusory body, the wisdom initiation emphasizes clear light wisdom, and the word empowerment emphasizes the unity of the fully developed illusory body and clear light. The Six Yogas of Naropa explain exactly how to approach this realization of the word empowerment, which is the experience of full enlightenment.

At the end of an initiation, you should feel that you have become enlightened, and you should make the determination, “From now on I will not project the hallucinations and concrete conceptions of my self-pity mind, the source of misery. Instead, I will identify with my divine wisdom-energy, the source of pleasure, and offer this to all living beings.”

As long as we maintain mindfulness and don’t lose control, it doesn’t matter how much blissful pleasure we experience. With the right attitude, our pleasure becomes our liberation.