TEACHINGS ON THE GENERATION PHASE given by Traktung Rinpoche Tsogyelgar, Ann Arbor, Michigan 1 2 Contents Part I. The Generation Phase, 2009.................……………………………………….7 The Generation Phase, 2006………………………………………………….41 Five Buddha Kula…………………………………………………………….55 The Vajra Body and Syllables………………………………………………..65 The Vase Empowerment……………………………………………………..81 Study Outline on the Generation Phase………………………………………97 The Three Samadhis Chart…………………………………………………..104 The Vajra Body Chart……………………………………………………….105 Aggregates and Elements Chart……………………………………………..106 Description of the Square Palace…………………………………………….109 Sambogakaya, from A Small Golden Key By Thinley Norbu Rinpoche………………………………………………….113 Part II. From the Innermost Secret Lotus Essence: the Sadhana of the Lama called “Wish-Fulfilling Jewel” A collection of commentaries on the sadhana and tsog …………………………131 Commentaries on the Black Bees Sadhana of Dechen Gyalmo – Yeshe Tsogyel as Queen of Great Bliss…………………193 Commentaries on Blessings of the Autumn Moon: A Sadhana of Vajrasattva, tsog and the inner offerings……………………….263 3 4 5 Part One Teachings on the Generation Phase 6 7 The Generation Phase: A sublime wisdom teaching given on April 23, 2009 in the pureland of Tsogyel. Tsogyelgar, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA Part One -- Beginning a Conversation on Generation and Completion Phase: the two stages of Deity Yoga according to Vajrayana “To the inseparable union of wisdom and bliss, which is the authentic abode and ground for the arising of the deity, to this I bow down.” In the tantra called The Secret Assembly it says: “External to the preciousness of mind there are no buddhas and there are no sentient beings.” So before we can enter into the fortress of the Generation Phase there has to be a starting point. And the starting point is a thorough integration with the thoughts and feelings which turn the mind to Dharma. (The four thoughts that turn the mind to Dharma), and with Refuge, and the supreme intention of compassion and impartial affection for all beings. And also the training in the accumulation of merit and the accumulation of wisdom, which comes from seamlessly blending your mind stream with the Guru’s mind stream. We won’t go over these in any detail because they’re not the subject matter. But what’s being said is that before entering into Generation Phase it’s beneficial to truly – not just to mindlessly or mechanically contemplate the pre-preliminaries, the four thoughts, this sort of thing. And also the preliminaries of Tantra: Refuge, Bodhichitta, Mandala, Vajrasattva, Buddha - but to integrate the meaning of those into your life. This forms the foundation. So, why is that important? Because with this foundation practice goes smoothly – the practice of Generation Phase. But without it then Generation Phase is a bit like floating on a boat on a wild ocean with no oars, no sail and not motor. And even if you develop experiences of meditation, shine or lha-tong, they’ll be partial. They won’t be complete and they won’t communicate to you in a way that transforms your being; the completeness of realization. And also the realizations will not be stable. If they are complete but have some stability, you’ll feel almost compelled to create a pretense of realization to cover up the lack of full realization. But even worse, if the realizations are unstable over time you’ll lose faith, and the ability of the teachings and path to bring you to the other shore. You see this a lot of time for practitioners. They don’t build the proper foundation, and then they become cynical and jaded about spiritual life as a whole, because it doesn’t seem to work, or to work fully, or stably. So this is supremely important, to have the proper foundation, the pre-preliminaries, and the four Tantric preliminaries. Which does not then necessarily mean accomplishing a certain set of numbers. It means accomplishing the signs of transformation in your being. We won’t go into detail because that’s not tonight’s subject matter. To night we’re beginning a 8 conversation about Generation and Completion Phase. The two stages of Deity Yoga according to Vajrayana. All of Buddha’s teachings are contained in the two stages of Generation and Completion. These two stages remove both the gross obscurations, that veil us from seeing our true nature, and the subtle obscuration that allows us to fully realize - or make real in the continuum of our body, speech and mind - that purity. In other words, the Completion Phase that allows us to authentically transform our body, speech and mind into the three kayas of a Buddha. So with Generation and Completion phase practiced successfully and well, then as it says in the Tantras: “As before, the changeless Dharmata.” “As before” – before delusion. Delusion causes, seems to cause a continuity in the seamless, changeless flow (doesn’t mean appearances aren’t arising), but “As before” – before we realize the fully enlightened, then “as before” – even in the midst of appearances, the changeless Dharmata. The Generation Phase, of these two, the Generation Phase – it’s said that Generation stage removes the confusion of ordinary people. And Completion Phase removes the subtle delusion of truly advanced, spiritually advanced people. So what is the confusion then that Generation Phase remove? In a nut shell, it is the confusions that forms and beings are ordinary, material, “stuff”. What the Generation Phase removes is the deluded attachment to appearances. But not to appearances in and of themselves, but to our notions and concepts about appearances. So the Generation Phase is meant to purify the ordinary deluded notion that there are, that there are what? Ordinary beings. And that there are ordinary appearances, and ordinary spaces; that the world and the beings within it have anything to do with ordinariness whatsoever. It purifies this, not just the imminent and the transcendent are one, but so that both notions are wiped out in the singularity of Divinity. When the Generation Phase purifies the gross obscurations, then a wisdom that recognizes all appearance as the sublime radiance of appearance-emptiness becomes stable. The sign, the authentic sign that Generation Phase has become stable is that one recognizes appearances, all phenomena, to abide in and as the palace of appearance-emptiness, which is nothing other than Buddha nature. In this way, then Generation Phase relates to the Vase empowerment. In tantric empowerments, you take four empowerments. The first empowerment is the vase empowerment. Generation phase empowers one to visualize oneself as the Deity, and one’s surroundings as the palace of the deity. Therefore, Generation Phase accomplishes the purpose and meaning of the vase empowerment. The other three empowerments are accomplished through the completion phase practices. So the Dzogrim or Completion Phase. In Tibetan - khyerim is generation phase; Dzogrim iscompletion phase. Dzogrim, or Completion phase, removes the subtle karmic obscuration which confuses and dualizes bliss-emptiness, and separates awareness for the radiance of awareness. At the level of Tantra, the confusion manifests as not recognizing bliss and emptiness to be single. The wisdom-bliss, inseparable. At the level of Dzogchen, the same thing is talked about as awareness-appearance. Awareness and it’s own radiance. This is a very subtle confusion, because it is a confusion that manifests prior to realms and beings at all. In the moment in which awareness is essence as a primordial purity – kadak – primordial 9 purity, and awareness’ spontaneous radiance - the lundrup, are slightly differentiated. The luminosity arises from the essence, and in that moment there’s the possibility of a confusion that confuses awareness and appearance as two separate things. We’ll go on to this later. In our vajrayana practice we deal with this in the way in which bliss and emptiness, especially for human beings in the desire realm, are dualized and made two. So this is the subtle karmic obscuration, right? And that is then purified in the completion phase. And over the course of this talk, we’re going to talk about Generation and Completion phase over the next couple of days. So it’s in Dzogpa Chenpo, and the reason I use the – to begin with Dzogrim - the Tibetan words, is to make this connection between Dzogrim, which is Competion phase, and Dzogpa Chenpo. The Dzog here – which means completion; chenpo means great. There’s Completion phase and Great Completion phase. So in Dzogpa Chenpo removes the final subtle-most confusion, which is the one that mistakes the moment of mistaking the luminous aspect of awareness for beingness whatsoever. So Generation phase removes the gross confusions about appearances. Completion removes the subtle confusions about the non- duality of bliss and emptiness. And Dzogpa Chenpo, Dzogchen, removes the final subtle-most confusion about beingness existing at all. I think that one of the best ways to understand this is from looking at the Taoist phrase, “From the Tao come the One, from the One comes the two, from the two come the ten- thousand things”. The Tao here is like the perfect unnamable, unspeakable, nonconceptual mystery of wholeness. That’s the Tao. From the Tao comes the One. The one here is the beingness. When the luminosity of wholeness – the kadak and lundrup. The awareness – empty awareness, and it’s radiance – inseparable. When the luminous awareness is mistaken for beingness. The moment beingness arises; the “I am”. The moment that arises, there is “the One”. And literally the moment it arises, already - because these aren’t static moments but a dynamic process – already the single indestructible bindu, the wholeness of wholeness has begun to experience a symmetry break. A break of it’s wholeness, in which it has recognized itself as “I am-ness”, and this oneness has begun a numerical process and leads directly to two- ness.