NOTES 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 that in whatever Vajrayana practice one might do, the nature of the principal deity is invariably one's own teacher, who thus is always the most important focus of devotion and source of blessings After the union of the essence of the mother and father at the moment of conception, the wheel of manifestation forms (this wheel, or cakra, is located at the navel once the body is formed) From it appear the three principle channels, which subsequently subdivide into thousands of others See glossary under "channel" and "wheel." shes bya bum 'iug, one of the instructions on the yoga of sleep found in the Great Perfection teachings At this level, taking perceptions as the path means experiencing them without any concept of an intrinsic reality of either perception or perceiver The six consciousnesses and their objects become ungraspable,like space They no longer give rise to attachment and thus are no longer a source of suffering The empowerment brings one to liberation through maturing one's mindstream "The ground empowerment is as follows If one realizes the nature of the mind, which is one's Buddha nature, that is the 'empowerment' of nirvat:ta If one does not, that is the 'empowerment' of sarilsara On the path, empowerment consists of three elements: 1) The ground empowerment, in which one is introduced to the mat:tdala of a deity by an authentic spiritual teacher At that moment, at best one realizes the view of the absolute empowerment In the middling case, one has the experience of bliss, clarity and non-thought At least one should experience a certainty that one's body, speech and mind are the three vajras, with a mind undistracted by anything else An empowerment received in this way will be the support for the path of Vajrayana However, to request more and more empowerments till one's head is flattened (by all the ritual-objects placed on it), while one's mind makes no progress at all, cannot serve as a true empowerment 2) The path empowerment Once one has received the ground empowerment, any further empowerments, whether one receives them from someone else or takes them by oneself, are empowerments on the path of the Vajrayana, whose function is to repair and purify 3) The fruit empowerment is the "great light ray empowerment," which, from the inseparability of the ground and clear light, and by the power of the wisdom of the absolute empowerment, destroys all obscurations of the habitual tendencies, or tendencies of the three perceptions of clarity, increase, and attainment during transference (at the rime of death)." They purify us of attachments to the three worlds of desire, form and formlessness, perfect the qualities of the three kayas in us and mature in us the wisdom of clear light Another name for the Copper-coloured Mountain spangs rtogs, the qualities of a Buddha-freedom from all obscurations and tendencies, and realization of the two kinds of knowledge-knowing all that there is to know and knowing the nature of everything According to the teachings of Vajrayana, the Buddha was already fully enlightened when he appeared in the world and all his actions were only a display to teach beings Mount Malaya, or Malayagiri (ri ma Ia ya), is in Sri Lanka and is usually equated with the sacred mountain Sumanakiita, now known as Adam's Peak, which is also the site of a footprint of the Buddha and was visited by Guru Rinpoche In some accounts Mount Malaya is described as "blazing with meteorites" lgnam lcag 'bar ba) 397 NOTES 279 The Five Excellent Ones of Sublime Nobility (dam pa'i rigs can drama lnga) were a god Cgrags ldan mchog skyong, Skt Yasasvi Varapala), a naga (klu rgyal 'iog po, the naga king Tak~aka), a y~a (skar mda' gdong, Ulkamukha), a rak~asa (blo gros thabs /dan, Matyaupayika) and a human being (dri med grags pa, Vimalakirti); alternatively, according to some sources, the god Indra (rig 'tkin lha dbang rgyal sbyin) is listed in place of Vimalakirti 280 mdo dgongs 'dus, also known as 'dus pa mdo Although it is called a siitra, this text is in fact one of the four root tantras of Anuyoga It was written down in molten beryl by the rak~sa Matyaupayika 281 rgyud gsang ba'i snying po, Skt Guhyagarbha, called here the Glorious Secret Tantra (dpal gsang ba'i rgyud) 282 The story of Garab Dorje follows in the next section In spite of his Indian origin, we 283 284 285 286 have kept the Tibetan name, since in the Tibetan tradition his Sanskrit name (Pramodavajra or Prahevajra) is rarely used, and his Tibetan name is more likely to be familiar to readers Vajrasanva, rdo rje sems dpa': rdo rje sems means vajra mind, and here Vajrasanva should be understood in the absolute sense of primal awareness (rig pa) which is indestructible rgyal thabs spyi lugs: empowerment without any ritual or visible process, simply the complete and instantaneous transfer of enlightened realization from mind to mind spyi lugs, "pouring," refers to this direct transfer, while rgya/ thabs, the "conquerors' means," can be understood as referring to Buddhahood and also, metaphorically, to the sovereignty conferred, as by a king to his heir yang sprul: the "emanation of an emanation" because Garab Dorje is an emanation of Vajrasanva, who is himself an emanation of Samantabhadra The text has a variant reading, ma brtsol meaning "without effort." However both mean without mental fabrication or manipulation ZR 287 byang sems rdo Ia gser :~;hun 288 Nyatri Tsenpo was enthroned in the Yarlung valley, one of seven small principalities 289 290 291 292 293 294 in central Tibet, probably in the second or third century B.C (HIST gives 247 BC) His lineage came to be known as the Chogyal dynasty, and later gradually gained control over a substantial portion of the country Lha-Thothori Nyentsen (374-? A.D.) was the 28th king of the Chogyal dynasty, and the event described is said to have occurred in 433 A.D These dates are given inDICT and by Dudjom Rinpoche in HIST, in which he adds that a variant of the story, according to which the siitra and other sacred objects described were brought to Tibet by visiting Indian paJJ