There is no tradition in the vajrayana that you have to do a specific practice for every empowerment you have received. Traditionally, in Tibet, we receive hundreds of different empowerments. Often they are given as collections, like the Treasury of Precious Termas and so on. No one could be expected to do hundreds of different practices every day.

So how are we to regard this? Every empowerment serves to bless us, consecrate us, and reenter us into the ranks of the vajrayana practitioners. But whatever practice we are doing, all vajrayana practices contain the essence of all other practices as well. It is said, “By meditating on any one deity, you are simultaneously  meditating on all deities. By presenting offerings to any one deity, you are simultaneously presenting offerings to all deities. By realizing any one deity, you are realizing all deities.” So with this understanding, I have never heard [Bardor Tulku] Rinpoche impose any commitment based on a specific empowerment.

You need have no fear that receiving an empowerment of Guru Rinpoche imposes on you the duty of doing, either at the present or any time in the future, a specific practice of Guru Rinpoche. Since all deities are the same in nature, all empowerments bless and further consecrate your present practice, whatever it is.

We should not fear receiving empowerments, because of this misunderstanding of samaya. The more empowerments we receive, the more blessing we receive, and the more we enter the ranks of the vajrayana.

Traditionally, what is regarded among the most secret of teachings is that of the Great Perfection, or Dzogchen. And yet, my khenpo told me, “Dzogchen should be taught as widely as possible; it should be taught not just to people who are going to practice it but to everyone, even to animals.” So traditionally, where I come from, animals are allowed to receive empowerments and be present when instructions are given.

If it were harmful to receive an empowerment and not do the practice, we would not do that to animals, becasue certainly animals are not going to do any sadhana practice in that life. So why do we admit animals to the ranks of an empowerment and instruction? Because they form a karmic connection with the vajrayana teaching such that once they are free of this animal life, they will be reborn in a position to do these practices.

So never fear the imposition of commitment through empowerment.

The text concludes with a colophon, which is in two parts: First, is the treasure colophon written by the person who wrote down the text, which was the wisdom dakini Yeshe Tsogyal. Second, there is a colophon written by the treasure revealer, Terchen Barway Dorje.

Yeshe Tsogyal wrote: “This Combined Essence of the Four Profound Gurusadhanas concisely contains all points and is easy to practice. It was taught by Guru Rinpoche out of compassion and kindness for those of the future. I, Yeshe Tsogyal, have concealed it for their benefit. May it benefit beings forever.”

This combined practice is a convenient and easily performed combination of the outer, inner, secret, and very secret gurusadhanas. And it was taught for the benefit of beings of the future by Guru Rinpoche to his disciple, Yeshe Tsogyal. At his instruction, she wrote down this liturgy that he taught. She did not write it in conventional Tibetan; she wrote it in symbol script. And you will see some of that symbol script at that point in the Tibetan text. Then she concealed this for the benefit of future beings.

When we think about this, we often think that this was sort of a random process; that she found a convenient cave somewhere, that she contained the text in some kind of impermeable container, and hoped that eventually someone would find it. it is not like that at all. There is nothing random about any of this. When Guru Rinpoche taught this to Yeshe Tsogyal, he did so with the omniscient knowledge of who would have contact with it in the future. When she wrote this down, she wrote it down in consideration of the actual needs of future disciples. It is very personal. It is very intimate. It is very much based upon their omniscient understanding of who would practice these liturgies, when in the future they practice them, what their needs and ability would be.

That means that practices like this are—to use English colloquialism—they are not off the rack. They are tailor made for you as an individual. You, as an individual, were known by Guru Rinpoche and Yeshe Tsogyal when they composed these texts. Your needs and abilities were taken into consideration. That is why Yeshe Tsogyal said, “All beings in the future who are interested in these treasures will all be those who have established a karmic connection with them in the past. Therefore, have joy and confidence. These words of mine are more precious than gold.” We find these words in the autobiography of Terchen Barway Dorje and in the great biography of Yeshe Tsogyal discovered by Taksham Nuden Dorje as well. They are often quoted.

What did Yeshe Tsogyal mean? She meant that nobody bumps into this stuff by accident. Nobody who finds these teachings is unworthy of them. Everyone who has the good fortune to encounter teachings such as this practice, teachings which are still warm with Guru Rinpoche’s and Yeshe Tsogyal’s breath, every person who comes into contact with these teachings does so because of their own previous aspirations, and their own previous karmic connection. It is actually impossible that a being could bump into this by accident. Therefore never think, “These teachings are wonderful, but I am unworthy of them.” If you were unworthy of them, you would not even know about them. The fact that you have come into contact with these things is an absolute guarantee that you are one of the people for whom these specific teachings were designed; designed in their omniscient wisdom by Guru Rinpoche and Yeshe Tsogyal.

Question: When Bardor Tulku Rinpoche gave the Atsara empowerment, we were told that if we wanted to do the practice, we should read the card that was distributed at the empowerment. Could you give more details about doing the practice?

Lama Tashi Topgyal: In the case of the protector Atsara, less important than your knowing the details and so on about what to visualize is the fact that a very personal relationship was created between each of the people who received that empowerment and this deity.

In a previous life Atsara was the custodian of Nalanda Monastery, and as a result he is a protector of both Nalanda and Vajrasana, or Bodh Gaya. In that life he was the Raven-Headed Protector who is an emanation of the Four-Armed Mahakala who is an emanation of the heruka Chakrasamvara, and he became a very close friend of the maha-pandit Naropa. When Naropa was reborn in Tibet as Terchen Barway Dorje and traveled to the part of Tibet where Atsara had taken up habitation, they met one another and resumed their friendship. They actually became really very, very close and intimate friends in spite of the fact that one of them was reincarnated as a human being and the other was nonhuman. Atsara remains a very devoted friend of Barway Dorje, and so he’s equally friendly with the present incarnation. The ceremony of empowerment [which was offered by Bardor Tulku Rinpoche at Kunzang Palchen Ling in April 2009] essentially was what is called entrustment. What Rinpoche did that day was to introduce his students to Atsara and to ceremonially mix your samaya and Atsara’s samaya, which was the culmination of the ritual. In doing so, basically what he did was say to Atsara, “From now on, as long as these people make some kind of offering, or whatever, to you, they’re in your care. You have to look after them.” I don’t think that there’s anything not covered by that. It’s not so much like imagining a deity or doing a meditation practice. It’s very, very personal. It’s a being that has taken on personal responsibility for your well-being.