The Guru Yoga of Receiving Wish-Fulfilling Great Flawless Exaltation

📸 18 Century Chinese statue of Buddha Vajradhara SF Asian Art Museum

Prostrations to the holy Root Guru.

Definitely believing the most kind Root Guru is great Vajradhara and praying to him are the unmistaken essence of the path of Vajrayana. So therefore, whoever wishes can make effort in that way, encouraged by the weariness of samsara and uncontrived faith.

 AH
I take refuge in the absolute self-awareness Guru Who is never gathering or separating.
I develop bodhichitta in the great self-sustaining nature Containing all phenomena, the inconceivable Mahasandhi.

Thus, take refuge and develop bodhichitta.

AH
The unobstructed, nonfabricated nature
Is actually seeing the great pureland of Dharmata,
The evenly open clear light of pervasive space,
The increasing, immeasurable palace of the experience of pure phenomena.
In the center of the joyful, self-accomplished array
Is the perfect culmination of the complete awareness Guru.
From the miraculous wisdom beyond thought, the exhaustion of phenomena, The great transformation of the youthful vessel body arises.
Yeshe Dorje Heruka260
Is the color of a radiant ruby, indivisible exaltation and emptiness,
With the face of sole awareness, always smiling in the zenith of ecstasy,
And two hands, the union of the actual two truths,
Holding a vajra, conquering samsara and nirvana,
And a kilaya weapon,261 completely annihilating the conception of ego.
Legs are extending in the gesture beyond samsara and nirvana,
Crushing the male and female rudras of dualistic phenomena.
Demonstrating the adornment of never abandoning all desirable qualities, Wearing the hero’s tiger skin around his waist
And bone and jewel ornaments,
He embraces the self-luminous wisdom Dakini in his lap,
Totally naked, holding a curved knife and a kapala of rakta.262
Both are in enchanting, youthful great exaltation.
From the beginning, self-manifesting and self-occurring,
The spontaneous nature accomplished from the beginning appears without visualizing.

Thus, see this.

To the Dharmakaya Root Guru, self-abiding in the original purity of the basis of Dharmakaya,
I prostrate by recognizing.263
I offer the unsought, self-occurring offering,264
The self-accomplished, unobstructed phenomena of the basis.265
I confess the deluded obscurations of temporary conceptions In great, primordially cleansed emptiness.
I rejoice in unmade, even pervasiveness,
The great, vast self-liberation of samsara and nirvana.
I request the turning of the wheel of the empty resonance of Dharma266
By the sounding of undestroyable, clearest, nonsubstantial speechlessness.
I pray to stay in the great rainbow body,
The profound great transformation of the youthful vessel.
I dedicate the unending, self-sustaining gathering of great merit In Dharmadhatu, free from effort and activity.

Thus, accumulate with the seven-branch supplication.267

Changeless, unceasing wisdom, the quality of purity from the beginning,
By coalescing with the youthful, indestructible union of great exaltation,
Is the one who binds all existence in the depth of the inconceivable ecstasy of impenetrable oneness.
To my self-awareness Root Guru, Samantabhadra, the unconditioned state,
Free from the aim of conceptualizing, I pray.

Liberated from the shell of the meditation of contrived thoughts,
The natural self-condition of never having meditated,
By the experience of confidence in samadhi, is leaving purity as it is without doing anything.
All the residue of samsaric phenomena is exhausted inwardly in stainless space.
May you only give the blessing of liberation in that self-Dharmata.

Thus, by one-pointedly praying when experiencing devotion and faith:

Lights emanate from the three vajra doors Of the glorious Guru Heruka.
By dissolving into one’s three doors,
All empowerments of wisdom body, speech, and mind are received.
The unbearable, flawless exaltation energy of the male and female wisdom consorts Intensely flames, and then melts into a sphere of light,
Dissolving into one’s sole, indestructible heart center.
The great empowerment of the blessing of transmission is obtained.
In the inconceivable expanse of wisdom mind, realization and liberation are simultaneous, Abiding in awareness of primordial purity, the greatest perfection.

Thus, abide in the state of even stillness, freed from all elaboration of thought, as much as you can. Then, when thoughts arise, see all phenomena, sound, and thoughts as the wisdom body, wisdom speech, and wisdom mind of the Root Guru, and then enter into Dharma activity.

📸 Dudjom Rinpoche by Sangharakshita 1958 Dungse Rinpoche ~ unknown

Thus, due to the request of one who has the wealth of devotion and samaya, Gelong Tamding Tshewang, who holds the life of Hayagriva, who asked for a Guru Yoga with precious upadesha, this is written by Jigdral Yeshe Dorje. Always auspicious. [This colophon was written by Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche. The colophon below was added by Kyabje Thinley Norbu Rinpoche.]

📸 Saraha Nyigna May 2013 ~ Original Photographer unknown

Due to Lama Tsedrup Tharchin asking me many years ago to write my own Guru Yoga, I translated this precious Guru Yoga full of the meaning of Dzogpa Chenpo into English as a substitute for writing one myself. May it benefit the lucky students of this degenerate time who have deep devotion and faith in the teacher who reveals the point of view of Dzogpa Chenpo, such as the representative of Samantabhadra, Jigdral Yeshe Dorje, to attain enlightenment.


  1. Indestructible Wisdom Heruka, drinking the blood of samsaric suffering as a sign of liberating sentient beings from negative karma.
  2. The vajra in his right hand and the kilaya in his left
  3. The curved knife is in her right hand and the kapala (skull cup) is in her left hand.
  4. The recognition that one’s own mind is not different from the Lama is prostration.
  5. Within the land of Sambhogakaya, all flawless phenomena simultaneously, continuously, tangibly and intangibly exist, so they are the unsought self-offering.
  6. In this case, the basis is not alaya, or kunzhi (kun gzhi), which is the basis of samsaric phenomena such as the phenomena of the six realms. The basis is the original purity of Dharmakaya, so the phenomena of the basis is the pure Rupakaya of immeasurable Sambhogakaya, such as the immeasurable five Buddha families and purelands, and also of Nirmakayana’s land, emanated from This is the Dzogpa Chenpo teaching on ’khor ’das kyi rnam bzhag.
  7. This is nada, which cannot even be It is connected to wisdom air inseparable with stainless sky.
  8. yan lag bdun

 

Accomplishment of the State of Tranquil Stillness

📸 Sandra Scales

When the mind becomes completely distracted outwardly by the pursuit of the appearances of the six sense gatherings, passions cause the karma of the happiness and suffering of existence to be unceasingly accumulated. By the power of samadhi, all passions are naturally pacified. This is like rough, rushing water descending from steep mountains that becomes calmer as it approaches the evenness of a valley’s streams, until gradually even its rippling waves become less and less. If the bliss of the body and mind becomes extremely refined, it is the accomplishment of the state of tranquil stillness.

~Thinley Norbu Rinpoche

A Cascading Waterfall of Nectar

 

January 4, 2022 marks the 10th Anniversary of Dungse Thinley Norbu Rinpoche’s Dechö.

Dechö ”de” is the time when a lama passes into parinirvana and “chö” is the aspect where the student makes offerings to connect with the blessings of the lama’s wisdom mind. This is a time of particular significance for all of us with a Dharma connection to Kyabje Dungse Thinley Norbu Rinpoche.

We celebrate our connection to Rinpoche with the Dorsem Lama Chopa puja, tsok and offerings. Visit vajrayana.org for more information, the YouTube link to join the livestream, and to make offerings. There will be two sessions: 9 am and 2:30 pm, both free of charge and with no registration required.

 

Advice on What to do Before Beginning Daily Meditation

Before we begin our daily meditation, we should clean our room and prepare our altar by cleaning it and making offerings. If we have no altar, we do not need to worry, we can simply visualize Padmasambhava in front of us.

The seven offering bowls which are offered on the altar symbolize the seven offerings:
🔸Water for drinking,
🔸Water for washing hands and feet,
🔸Flowers for adorning the head or hair,
🔸Incense for smelling to please the nose,
🔸Lamp for seeing to please the eyes,
🔸Perfumed water to sprinkle on the body, to refresh it, and
🔸Food to please the taste.
Music to please the ears can be an eighth offering.

The offerings which we make on the altar are symbolic. In our minds, we offer all pleasant things that we see, hear, taste, smell, and feel. We offer the light of the sun and the moon, all fresh flowers, all pleasing smells, all delicious food, and so forth, everything wonderful. Since these offerings are made to the Three Jewels and the Three Roots, who do not have any greed or desire for these offerings, they are made for the benefit of all sentient beings. After we have prepared our room and our altar, we begin our meditation with the common outer practice which is the four thoughts to turn the mind.

These are:
🔸The preciousness of human birth,
🔸 Impermanence and death,
🔸the cause and effect of karma, and
🔸The suffering of saṃsāra.
By meditating on these four thoughts, the mind is subdued and one is led to renounce saṃsāra.

Then we do the extraordinary inner preparation, which is the preliminary practice. Within the Ngondro, there are:
🔸going for refuge,
🔸generating Bodhicitta,
🔸Vajrasattva purification,
🔸maṇḍala offering,
🔸and the prayer of Guru Yoga

Thinley Norbu
Small Golden Key
Translated by Lisa Anderson
Shambala
©️2012