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Vajrayogini is a female enlightened Deity of Highest Yoga Tantra who is the manifestation of the wisdom of all the Buddhas. By engaging in the Tantric practice of Vajrayogini under the guidance of a qualified Spiritual Guide, sincere practitioners can completely purify their body, speech, and mind and attain the state of full enlightenment.
I didn’t make that up — I just got it from the back cover of The New Guide to Dakini Land. It seems like a good time to talk about Buddha Vajrayogini and Buddha Heruka seeing as thousands of people are about to receive these Highest Yoga Tantra empowerments in Mexico and/or are intent on doing so in England this summer. If you have these empowerments already, or are getting them soon, please read on. Otherwise, you may prefer to wait.
Bringing the result into the path
In Tantra, we bring the result of our future spiritual practice into the present by generating ourselves as a Deity, ie, a Tantric Buddha or enlightened being. This is based on renunciation, bodhichitta, and the wisdom realizing emptiness, all explained in Buddha’s Sutra teachings. These so-called “three principal aspects of the path” are said to be like the runway, and Tantra the airplane that flies us non-stop from samsara to the city of enlightenment.
I want to be free right now
In general, therefore, we generate ourself as a Buddha out of renunciation. For as long as we impute ourselves upon, or identify with, a samsaric body and mind, thinking “me” — which we don’t need to do, by the way, if we understand that self is mere name with nothing behind it — we have no choice but to inhabit all the sufferings thrown up by a meaty body and a deluded mind.
So what is it like to be a Buddha instead? To have a body made of wisdom light instead of this painful crunchy old bag of bones? To have an omniscient blissful loving mind completely free from ignorance, mistaken perceptions, and suffering?
I want others to be free right now
And we self-generate as a Buddha especially out of compassion. We cannot bear kind living beings to suffer for even one more day — dawdling along the spiritual path is not an option. So we have to get enlightened, and quickly. We are thinking, “I can do this. I am already arising as a Buddha in an enlightened Pure Land, with pure enjoyments, helping all living beings.”
As soon as we can already imagine doing this, that is the point when it starts becoming a reality. And everything is speeded up. We can go around all day blasting blessings from our heart, giving everyone peace and bliss.
I can do it right now
And we CAN self-generate to become the embodiment of renunciation, bodhichitta, and all other good qualities because everything lacks existence from its own side and is mere projection of the mind. We dissolve ourselves and all other phenomena into the clear light of bliss and emptiness — the mere absence of all the things we normally perceive — and, like a rainbow appearing in an empty sky, arise from that as a Buddha in a Pure Land full of pure beings and enjoyments.
Our main basis of imputation for “me” is bliss mixed inseparably with the mere absence of all the things we normally see — the absence of all those real things that usually draw us in, bog us down, and make us develop self-grasping and other delusions. We are now vast, omniscient, and effortlessly all-compassionate, able to emanate or appear whatever people need whenever and wherever they need it.
So this is what we are aiming for! This is what it will be like to be a Buddha. So this is who we imagine we are now.
Everything is imagination
As I explain more in this article, this so called “correct imagination” is based on the wisdom realizing that nothing is fixed, everything is mere imputation or conceptual label. It is just as “realistic,” indeed far more so, than the limited, hallucinatory sense of self projected and fixed by the ignorance of our self-grasping. It also works a great deal better. Regarding ourselves as stuck, ordinary, useless, and suffering keeps us exactly that way, whereas every moment of regarding ourselves as free, enlightened, powerful, and blissful draws us into liberation and enlightenment for our own and others’ sake.
Self-generation is not as hard as you may think
By the way, generating or identifying ourselves as Vajrayogini or Heruka is not as hard as we sometimes make out. And far from being abstract, irrelevant to “real life”, or fantastical, it is an immensely practical and realistic way to overcome daily run-of-the-mill delusions and effortlessly help others.
In degenerate times, when discouragement and low self-image abound, I think the practice of Tantra is essential not just for attaining enlightenment but for making any real headway against our delusions and sustaining the energy and confidence needed to help others.
So I plan to share some tips and tricks on this shortly 😊 Starting with this.
