Vajra Yogini Daju or self initiation
Recently I had monk friends from Gaden visit me. They had assisted me in the Vajra Yogini Self initiation rite that I had needed to do.
Extensive tormas and preparations were done. And the self initiation itself took around 7 glorious hours.
Self initiation purifies ones vows taken before, mends them, re affirms them, and powerful to purify many downfalls in general that prevent attainments from one’s practice. Also you may retake your mantra count commitment if it was broken.
You plant the 4 types of initiations into one’s mindstream. It is necessary for the Lama also to do daju prior to conferring Vajra Yogini’s initiation to others.
It is a powerful tantric practice to restore one’s practice from time to time to assure success in one’s sadhanas.
Kating Rinpoche (left), myself (centre) and Ven Losang (right). This photo was taken in my ladrang in front of the beautiful shrine with 208 Lama Tsongkapas in the niches behind us. These two monks helped me with the sacred Vajra Yogini Daju and have returned. They are wonderful monks. I thank them so much.
Myself about to begin the sacred Vajra Yogini Daju. The seats on my right are for the two venerable monks who are joining me for the Daju. In front is my personal altar with Holy Vajra Yogini and Manjushri in my room.
I am indeed fortunate that I was able to obtain this sacred practice from my enlightened master with full commentary and oral transmission. In the future, many of my students will engage in this sacred practice when the time is right. It is the most appropriate practice for people of this time.
It was indeed an honour and great blessing for me to do the daju. I felt extremely happy and blissful.
Tsem Rinpoche
Nice.
I don’t see other links. Are they available?
Having done close retreat I’m qualified to do vajrayogini self-initiation.
What I don’t have is the mandala and sindhura. Living in the US, I’m not quite sure how to obtain these.
Great you can do this truly wonderful self-initation.
Dear Bob,
If you need help to obtain some items such as mandala and sindura, you may contact my PA Bengkooi for the items. Please go http://www.kechara.com for her email.
Good luck to you.
Tsem Tulku
It would be great to be able to engage in this sacred practice one day. I will strife to do the pre-requisites to be ready for the day to come.
Dear Rinpoche,
According to Je Rinpoche’s tradition, a practitioner should practise Yamantaka, Guhyasamaja and Heruka Chakrasamvara together. But, given the limited time and ability as a lay practitioner, do you think it is sufficient to just practise Vajrayogini?
Dear K. Joey,
What you say is exactly correct.To practice the three Kingly tantras is really the way to go. Due to time, obstacles, degeneration and laziness pervasive in our time, we find it difficult. If we do Vajra Yogini and go all the way with Her practice, it would be excellent. Many great Tantric Masters such as Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo, Kensur Lobsang Tharchin Rinpoche all recommend the same thing.
Focus all your energy into every aspect of Her practice and you will be going the right direction.
Tsem Tulku
Dear Rinpoche,
Thanks so much for your reply. The question that has been staying in my mind for so many years finally get solved!
In terms of Vajrayogini practice, (I don’t know whether this is a suitable place to raise this question), is training in clarity and divine pride more important than mantra recitation? Or the other way round? I heard one lama saying that, according to Zong Rinpoche’s advice, mantra recitation is most crucial in Vajrayogini sadhana. Please kindly advise me on this point as I am wondering how to balance these two aspects of practices in daily meditation
The VY daju was done on the first day of the Chinese New Year – and what a new year it was! The best one yet, in all the 28 measly ones I’ve ever previously “celebrated”.
The final VY text that was transliterated, edited, proofed and laid out was almost 100 pages – and weeks of working with the monks to perfect it. As uninitiated practitioners, us students were not permitted to really read the prayers within, but I had the huge huge huge huge huge and amazing privilege of preparing the prayers. It was something just so super sacred to even touch the printed prayers and send them up to Rinpoche with a khata. I’m still excited just thinking about it now as I type this.
At the end of the initiation, those of us who were still hanging around the ladrang (waiting for a spillover of blessings!) were invited up to Rinpoche’s room, where Rinpoche shared Dharma teachings with us and allowed us to partake a little in the offering tormas. OH LOVE LOVE LOVE! It was the biggest and happiest buzz to be there, in a little room full that was of Vajrayogini and dakinis.
Please please, may we never be separated from this lineage and blessings, and by any tiny little merit I may have amassed from being (so fortunately) involved in this puja, may I please please be able to receive this practice in future, and bring that same bliss to others, so people can experience just as much joy as I did in that one little day.
How so very fortunate to have Vajrayogini initiation in this degenerate time! I pray I will have the merits to practice Vajrayogini in this life time.
May we all truly have the great fortune to learn her Practice and become one with Vajrayogini, the great Queen of Bliss!
However, just sitting around, doing nothing to change or improve isn’t going to get us there. Rinpoche has said many times that if we cannot even hold simple basic refuge vows and keep our Samayas with our Guru clean and well, then we can forget about getting the Vajrayogini initiations. If we can’t even walk well and we don’t even want to practise to do that well, why learn how to fly?
I didn’t use to understand this – I thought we should all run to as many initiations as possible and collect as many blessings as possible, and somehow all our ‘sins’ will be cleansed. Right.
I now understand why Rinpoche will not confer any higher practices. If we can’t even keep the simple ones and do them well, then we will incur even more bad karma by undertaking higher practices but not do them well, or not do them at all. We will create more negative karma this way.
Hence, the Guru is very kind and is saving us from further karmic damage.The difference between Rinpoche and us – we see 7 hours of puja and we faint. Rinpoche sees it as pure bliss!
So, if we are serious about Vajrayogini, then we have to get serious about everything we do in Dharma, for Dharma and go all the way.
I remember that few weeks period, where Jamie, Sharon were pretty much away from KMP as they were working with the monks to transliterate the prayers. It was very challenging as I understand, esp non of our members have any knowledge of the Tibetan language. Thus, Jamie, Sharon, Shin and a few others were pretty much making up words to get as close to the what they hear. Pretty amazing feat!
The monks were very patient to run through again and again on the prayers. Until that is perfected, then only they proceeded to learning how to setup the altar and the rituals… Every must know who much work and effort goes into acquiring the knowledge from these monks for Kechara House to be doing these prayers in the near future. Thank you special puja team for your efforts!
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Wow… thanks for sharing this. I hope my daily practice is good enough.
I will do the powerful Setrap mantra every single day in addition to the prostrations (I generally do around five) and the tea offering lyrics, so that he will help and assure me to be a good practicioner, even if I don’t have the complete knowledge on the whole Vadjra Yoghini practices – yet. Does that sound okay to you?
Rinpoche, how is this different for practice than the empowerment?
Empowerment is when you receive the sacred Vajra Yogini (Vy) practice from a lama.
Daju is after you have received empowerment from a lama, then you do the retreats, fire puja and then you can perform the daju and empower yourself in order to purify your commitments and renew your commitments from time to time.
I hope that helps. Tsem Tulku
Also, I received empowerment from H.H. Chetsang Rinpoche but I have yet to find suitable image of reality source for visualization. As I personally rely heavily in beginning of a new practice on an image, I have yet to get to far with my Vajrayogini practice though I have a tiny image of the red reality source at the moment. Also, my eyes are not so great so I like large high res images and only have the small Vajrayogini mandala. Do you know where I might find these images?
Thank you.
I will upload a medium resolution image of the sacred Vajra Yogini mandala for your practice on my blog. Here is the link in which you can download a clearer picture of Her mandala: http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/2010/09/14-vajra-yogini-hand-carved-stone-statue.html
You may hence download from there. When you have received, you may leave a comment here.
Remember, Vy’s mantra is the King Of Mantras. Do it diligently and do your tsok every two weeks. Good luck. Tsem Tulku
Thank you. That’s a beautiful mandala. And the red reality source? Where do you recommend I search for a high res image?
The mandala and reality source are combined into one in the picture I posted. Tsem Tulku
Thank you so much, rinpoche.
Tsok tomorrow the tenth day of tenth month of tenth year at ten in morning! And then I begin Vajrayogini practice 10 at night!
May you live long and continue to benefit countless others!
Some time we shall meet in this life or another and at that time I will offer roses! Until then – Namo triple gem! Namo Vajrayogini! Namo Tsem Tulku!
Not sure if link will work but would like to share picture of flying Vajrayogini:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001263408999&v=wall&ref=profile#!/photo.php?fbid=128172323901547&set=a.107113916007388.4223.100001263408999
Hi Konchok, you should check if your lineage is the same as Vajra Yogini that Tsem Rinpoche is practising… i think it may not be, yours may be the Vajravarahi (Dorje Pakmo) lineage since you got it from HH Chetsang Rinpoche.
Thank you for your thoughtfulness! Actually for Vajrayogini practice in DRikung Kagyu either Vajravarahi or Vajrayogini are told to be okay. I have both images. In Vajrayogini I understand hand down with chopper subdues lower forces/realms/demons.
May we all know the blessings of Vajrayogini and Vajravarahi! May we all awaken and know lasting well being!
pictures of Vajra yogini and Vajra harahi:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001263408999
Please delete past two comments. The pictures were removed. Thank you.
Dear Rinpoche,
I am very devoted to Vajrayogini practice, but I have severe wind imbalance whenever I intensely practise the long sadhana, especially when I am in retreat. My heart palpitation is horrifying, and sometimes, in my sleep, I feel my consciousness is shooting up to the crown. That’s a very terrible experience.
I have consulted a few lamas and some recommended to switch to another extremely wrathful yidam. I have tried to follow their advices but my mind keeps on yearning for Vajrayogini. The urge is very strong and I feel I am at a crossroad.
My root lama has done the great Vajrayogini retreat twice. When he passed away at Sera Je, another lama dreamt of dakinis packing up the belongings of my root lama. That has long been my driving force in perfecting my Vajrayogini practice.
Against this background, would you please kindly let me know whether I should presevere in my Vajrayogini practice, keeping my chin up and bravely facing up to all the physical and mental disturbances?
Namaste Tsem Rinpoche,
Wish your all efforts to uplift human society come true.I am Nepali boy from Kathmandu writing to you ,After I watched and listened about this diety and her practice from your teaching posted in youtube I made round going to Buddhanath Kechara Lounge and Narayanthan residence .Both found to be closed ,I really looking forward someday I am be able to practice this god willing.Thanku you for introducing very open and pragmatic way.
Riyaj