His Holiness the Dalai Lama: It is important to dedicate our merit in this manner and to reinforce or complement it by remembering emptiness as well.

Teachings given in New York City on 24 September 2005 by His Holiness the Dalai Lama on The Yoga Method of Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of Compassion

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

The Concluding Practice

The first section, the request to reside or depart, is not necessary when we practice the sadhana daily and generate ourself as the deity, but if we do the practice on the basis of a front generation, where we visualize the deity in front of us, we need to include this section. So when we’re doing the sadhana daily with self-generation, we skip to “I transform into the Great Compassionate One, with one face and two arms, marked by a white OM on the crown, a red AH at the throat and a blue HUM at the heart” and conclude the sadhana there. Then we do the dedication.

Dedicating our merit at the end of practice is crucial because, in general, it’s very rare for us create merit, so we have to ensure that when we do, it doesn’t get wasted. We do this by dedicating the virtue we have accumulated not to the fulfilment of our mundane aspirations or the welfare of this life but to the benefit of all sentient beings as infinite as space, following Shantideva’s sentiments,

As long as space remains,
As long as sentient beings,
Until then may I too remain
And dispel the miseries of the world.

It is important to dedicate our merit in this manner and to reinforce or complement it by remembering emptiness as well.

In between sessions

So far we’ve discussed the practice of the sadhana and deity yoga during the meditation session, but as I mentioned before, we need to practice in between sessions as well, and there are yogas associated with all our everyday activities, such as getting up in the morning, blessing the speech, eating, sleeping and so forth. Doing these yogas between sessions enhances our sessions of sadhana practice, transforms all twenty-four hours of our existence into practice and obviously speeds our path to enlightenment.

So with this, today’s teaching is completed. As Buddhists we are all familiar with ritual practices but the most important thing to remember is that actual Dharma practice is done not by means of ritual but by the mind and the essence of such practice is to cultivate the awakening mind, bodhicitta, and an understanding of emptiness. These two are the essence of Dharma.

Thank you very much.

The Self-generation Sadhana of Avalokiteshvara

The Preliminary Practices

Refuge and Bodhicitta

In the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha
I take refuge until enlightenment is reached,
By the merit of generosity and other good deeds,
May I achieve Enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. (3x)

Supplication to the Lineage Gurus

1. The heavens of the dharmakaya are supreme yet, out of warmth,
A hundred thousand moisture-bearing clouds of non-referential compassion gather.
I supplicate Padmapani, skilled in sending a rainfall
Of attainment, benefits and bliss to limitless sentient beings.

2. Excellent Bhikshuni Lakshmi, gone to the stage of supreme liberation,
Chandra Kumara, who favored the five sciences,
Jnanabhadra, strong in patience, effort and faith,
I supplicate you three friends of sentient beings.

3. Penyawa of Nepal, best of scholars,
Excellent Dawa Gyaltsän, emanation of Supreme Arya,
Nyiphug Chökyidra, lord of practice,
I supplicate you three great beings.

4. Trupa Dorje Gyäl, descendent of the conqueror’s children,
Excellent Zhangtön Drajig, great in learning and morality,
Thugje Jangchub Päl, endowed with morality’s fragrance,
I supplicate you three, who clarified the path to liberation.

5. Dewa Chän, with control over countless concentrations,
Jangchub Bar, with visions of hosts of meditational deities,
Yeshe Bum, who possessed a treasury of precious qualities,
I supplicate you three, who fulfilled the hopes of sentient beings.

6. Thogme Zangpo, who attained supreme bodhicitta,
Sherab Päl, emanation of the invincible conqueror, Maitreya,
Tsultrim Tsän, who constantly protected all beings with compassion,
I supplicate you three, who spontaneously achieved the welfare of others.

7. Yontän Rinchen, holy guide of sentient beings,
Sangye Gyatso, lord over an ocean of Buddha’s teachings,
Kyabchog Päl, who showed the path to infinite manifestations,
I supplicate you three, who embodied scripture and realization.

8. (Gyälwa) Ensapa, hero who accomplished righteous conduct,
Sangye Yeshe, who fulfilled the hopes of the fortunate,
Excellent (Panchen) Lobsang Chögyän, seeing all to be known,
I supplicate you three holy guides.

9. Damtsig Dorje (Könchog Gyältsän), who attained supreme realization,
Excellent (Panchen) Lobsang Yeshe, lord of all families,
Venerable Donyö Khädrub, clarifier of the excellent path,
I supplicate you three lamps of the doctrine.

10. I supplicate Ngawang Chogdän, embodiment of the glorious,
Who partook of the supreme wisdom of Manjushri, the five-knotted lord of speech,
And Kälsang Gyatso, the seventh Dalai Lama,
Who clarified the doctrines of scripture and realization of the good eon’s fourth guide,
Lord Shakyamuni Buddha.

11. I supplicate the ocean of different emanations of the Supreme Arya,
Universally appearing as environments and inhabitants,
Apparitions of analytic wisdom and compassion,
Unified with an all-pervading nature, primordially pure.

12. Please bless me that I might be cared for closely like an only child
By Padmapani, who enjoys the Potala,
And by drinking the essence of the nectar of the Mahayana,
Accomplish solely what is pleasing with my three doors.

13. Please bless me to renounce all the perfections of cyclic existence,
To be unattached to the bliss of my own peace,
And to generate the supreme mind desiring to liberate mothers,
Equal to space, from the ocean of suffering.

14. Please bless me to eliminate ordinary appearance and grasping
With the clear appearance and divine pride of the six deities:
The deity of thusness, the tone of the mantra’s empty resonance, the seed syllable,
The form complete with marks and exemplifications, the commitment mudra and sign.

15. Please bless me to accomplish each and every common attainment
Through dependence on the concentration with four-branched repetition,
And to complete perfect concentration
With the yogas of absorption in fire and sound.

16. Please bless me to uproot the two obscurations
With the great space-like concentration
Bestowing immaculate liberation that destroys all trust in grasping at signs
And by being endowed with a myriad of merits of skillful means.

17. Please bless me to attain soon the complete direct exalted wisdom regarding all phenomena,
The wish-fulfilling form bodies with their nets of light,
And to spontaneously achieve the enlightened activities,
Ripening and liberating sentient beings of the five families.

Arising in the Holy Body of the Great Compassionate One

Contemplate:
Instantaneously, I arise as the holy body of the Great Compassionate One.

Blessing of the Offerings

OM PADMANTAKRITA HUM PHAT
OM SVABHAVA SHUDDHAH SARVA DHARMA SVABHAVA SHUDDHO HAM

Everything is empty. From the sphere of emptiness appear [eight] BHRUMs that become vast and extensive vessels, each containing a white OM. The OMs melt into light and transform into drinking water, water for feet, flowers, incense, lamps, perfume, food and music. Their nature is emptiness, they have the aspect of the individual offerings, and their function is to give special uncontaminated bliss.

OM ARGHAM AH HUM (drinking water)
OM PADYAM AH HUM (water for feet)
OM PUSHPE AH HUM (flowers)
OM DHUPE AH HUM (incense)
OM ALOKE AH HUM (light)
OM GANDHE AH HUM (perfume)
OM NAIVIDYA AH HUM (food)
OM SHAPTA AH HUM (music)

The sadhana was provided by Khen Rinpoche Lobsang Tsephel, Land of Compassion Buddha, California. http://www.lamayeshe.com/index.php?sect=article&id=422