Thubten Yeshe - Becoming Vajrasattva: The Tantric Path of Purification

Publishers Acknowledgment

The Publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous help of the Hershey Family Foundation in sponsoring the publication of this book.

Lama Thubten Yeshe

Foreword by Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche
Edited by Nicholas Ribush

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2004 Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Thubten Yeshe, 19351984

Becoming Vajrasattva : the tantric path of purification / Lama Thubten Yeshe ; edited by Nicholas Ribush.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-86171-389-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Spiritual lifeTantric Buddhism. 2. Heruka (Buddhist deity)Cult.

I. Ribush, Nicholas. II. Title.

BQ8938.T45 2004

294.3'444dc21

2004000255

08 07

5 4 3 2

Cover painting: Heruka Vajrasattva yab-yum, painted by Peter Iseli, photographed by Peter Studer.

Cover and interior design by Gopa & Ted2, Inc. Set in Adobe Garamond 10.5/13.5

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I WOULD LIKE TO EXPLAIN the great importance of the Vajrasattva meditation and recitation practice. Why, it is important even for people who believe merely in the existence of this life alone!

All lifes successincluding success in such ordinary things as family and friendship, business, health, wealth, and powerdepends upon both purifying negative karmic obstacles and not creating more negative karma. How do we create negative karma? When we engage in the ten negativities out of selfishness and delusion. The deluded minds are those of ignorance, attachment, and anger; the ten negativities are the three of bodykilling, stealing, and sexual misconductthe four of speechlying, slander, harsh speech, and gossipand the three of mindcovetousness, ill will, and wrong views. According to the natural law of karma, if you hurt others, you hurt yourself.

It works the other way, too. If you want others to love you, you must first love others. If you help or benefit others, naturally they will help or benefit you. The cause and effect of karma is as simple as this. As for the Vajrasattva purification practice, which is more powerful than negative karma, it can prevent you from experiencing problems that negative karma would otherwise have brought. Thus the practice of purification is one of the most important solutions to problems, and is extremely necessary, even for people who believe there is only one life.

Unfortunately, such peoples hearts are usually not open to learning new things about the reality of life or the nature of phenomenanew philosophies, new subjects. They wont even analyze new possibilities. All this prevents them from experiencing both temporal and ultimate happiness. If you dont want relationship problems, business failures, illness, notoriety, or the criticism of others, the practice of Vajrasattva is extremely important.

When it comes to spiritual growth, the Vajrasattva purification practice is even more important. As Majushri advised Lama Tsongkhapa, The way to actualize the path to enlightenment quickly is to do three things: practice purification and the accumulation of merit, make single-pointed requests to the guru, and train the mind in the path to enlightenment. The practice of Vajrasattva is common to all four traditions of Tibetan BuddhismNyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, and Gelukwhere it is used to purify obstacles, obscurations, negative karma, and illness. The root tantra Dorje Gyn (Vajra Ornament) states that if you are always unconscious and careless, even small negativities cause great damage to your body, speech, and mind, just as the venom of a poisonous snake will spread rapidly throughout your body, getting worse and worse every day, endangering your life.

The great enlightened being Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo said that if you have killed even a tiny insect and have not purified that negativity by the end of the day with a practice such as the Vajrasattva purification, the weight of that karma will have doubled by the next day. On the third day it will have doubled again, and by fifteen days will have become as heavy as the karma of killing a human being. By eighteen days it will have increased 131,072 times. So you can see, as the weeks and months and years go by, one tiny little negative karma will have multiplied over and over until it has become like a mountain the size of this earth. When death arrives, the karma will have become incredibly heavy.

Here I am talking about just one small negative karma, but every day we accumulate many, many negative karmas of body, speech, and mind. The weight of each tiny negative karma created each day multiplies over and over again, becoming unimaginably heavy. And theres no question that every day, besides those small negative karmas, we also create many gross negativities. Thus we have accumulated many heavy negative karmas in this life, and in all our beginningless previous lives as well. If you contemplate the continuous multiplication of all these karmas it is unimaginably unimaginable!

The Dorje Gyn states that if you recite the hundred-syllable Vajrasattva mantra twenty-one times every day, negative karmas are prevented from multiplying. The great, sublime realized beings also explain that this is the way to purify whatever downfalls and transgressions you have accumulated. Furthermore, His Holiness Trijang Rinpoche, who is actually Heruka himself, has explained that if recited twenty-eight times each day, the short Vajrasattva mantra (OM VAJRASATTVA HUM) has incredible purifying power. It not only has the power to prevent any negative karma created that day from multiplying, but it can also completely purify all negativities you have ever createdin that day, in that life, and even since your beginningless rebirths.

These are some of the incredible benefits of practicing the Vajrasattva recitation and meditation. Moreover, it is taught that if you recite the long Vajrasattva mantra one hundred thousand times you can purify even broken root vows of highest yoga tantra. Thus theres no question that you can purify broken root pratimoksha (individual liberation) and bodhisattva vows through this technique.

Experienced meditators have advised that, in general, it is more important to put your everyday lifes effort into the practice of purificationthis is the way to attain spiritual realizations. The Kadampa Geshe Dolpa said that if you practice purification and the accumulation of merit continuously and turn your mind to the path, lamrim realizations that you thought would take one hundred years to achieve will come to you in just seven. Such is the inspiring testimony of the highly experienced meditators who have attained the various levels of the path to enlightenment.