[Taught by Lama Tashi Topgyal in Tampa, FL, January 2011. Translated by Lama Yeshe Gyamtso. Transcribed and edited by Basia Coulter. All right reserved. Please do not reprint without permission.] 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 [...]
One of the other tertöns predicted by the Fourteenth Karmapa was Terchen Barway Dorje. Terchen Barway Dorje received from the Fourteenth Karmapa an empowerment that the Karmapa called The Embodiment of All Victors in the Three Jewels. It is a sadhana of Guru Rinpoche. When the Fourteenth Karmapa gave him this empowerment, he did it entirely from memory. He did not use a text. He gave Barway Dorje the empowerment, the transmission, and the instructions, and allowed Barway Dorje to commit it to writing. It was evident that this was a mind terma of the Fourteenth Gyalwang Karmapa himself. In the context of that empowerment, the Gyalwang Karmapa prophesied to Terchen Barway Dorje that he would also discover terma.
I would like to clarify the issue of samaya. Nowadays, some people think that samaya is something that you should be afraid of, that it is some kind of threat that is hanging over our heads. Here [in the Clear Guide for the Generation Stage], samaya is explained as all included within the person of the guru, and it is divided into the guru’s body, speech, mind, qualities, and activities. Why do we say that samaya is all included within the body, speech, and mind of the guru? As it is said, “The guru is the buddha; the guru is the dharma, the lord; the guru is glorious Vajradhara, the creator of all.” The meaning of this is that the guru’s body is the sangha; the guru’s speech is the dharma; and the guru’s mind is the buddha. And that is why in vajrayana, we refer to the guru as the overlord of all mandalas.
