[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 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.
