Dear Lee,

Thank you for your question. Yes, you are correct that Tsangpa Karpo is the peaceful form of Lord Setrap. However, the form, the nature of the practice, the mantra, etc is different. While it is not wrong for a person to have Tsangpa Karpo on their altar and recite Setrap’s mantra and/or prayers. It wouldn’t be as effective as having the actual image of Setrap on the altar and engaing in the practice.

Traditionally, if you are engaging in the practice, you would have an image of that deity on the altar. While all the enlightened beings, whether in their meditational deity form or protector forms are all one and the same, the practice and the nature of the practice differs. So it’s better to have an image of the actually deity/protector that you are practising on your altar, to 1) create merit in relation to making offerings to that deity or protector and 2) to act as a focal point for your practice.

Traditionally, for Dharma protectors, the images were covered when placed on the altar, one reason being that they are wrathful and not everyone is used to that. So perhaps you can give them an image that is covered.

Alternatively, if Setrap’s form or mantra is too wrathful for them, perhaps a more peace deity that has similar protective qualities would be better for them. Such deities include Lama Tsongkhapa or even Green Tara. These are meditational deities rather than Dharma protectors, but they can have the same protective qualities as a Dharma protector when practiced well. But obviously this would depend on why that person was practicing Setrap in the first place. I hope this helps.

If you would like more private advice regarding this, you can email us at care@kechara.com, referencing this question and our reply. Hope this helps. Thank you.

Dear Jay,

Thank you for your question. As you have received empowerment into this incredibly powerful practice and therefore have a guru-disciple connection with your root guru, you should make offerings and request him/her to explain more about the vows, commitments, etc. This would be best. Sometimes, gurus adapt the commitments to suit the students, give the empowerment as a blessing without commitments, etc. So, we cannot comment on the exact vows, commitments, prerequisites and requirements as this will depend on the guru who gave you the empowerment.

That being said, there are also many different practices of Hayagriva, according to various lineages and even with the lineages there are versions of the practice belonging to the lower tantra classification and the higher tantra classification, so the vows and commitments, etc., also differ according to type of tantra.

In general for the requirements and prerequisites you can follow the general information on the following articles, minus those that refer to Vajra Yogini’s practice specifically:

https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/inspiration-worthy-words/starting-on-vajra-yogini-now.html
https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/buddhas-dharma/vajrayogini-the-powerful-divine-red-lady.html

These are generally having strong guru devotion, and (if you are from the Gelug tradition) study and practice of the Lamrim & other teachings. If you are from another lineage, the teachings may be different. You will also need to have completed some of the Ngondro practices or Preliminary Practices which are extended retreats. But again, all of this would depend on the guru who gave you the empowerment.

If the empowerment you received is a lower tantra type of Hayagriva empowerment, then you would need to keep your refuge and bodhisattva vows as they would have been given as part of the empowerment.

If the empowerment you received is a higher tantra type, then you would need to hold tantric vows in addition to the refuge and bodhisattva vows. You can read more about the vows here: https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/students-friends/vows-the-roots-of-all-attainments.html

While we do have all of this information available on this website, it is better to request your guru to give you teachings on what the commitments are, if any, of the empowerment you received. You should take the information here as a basis to educate yourself on what they are, but in terms of practice, this is something that only your guru who gave you the empowerment can tell you.

I hope this helps you a little.

Dear Heath Van Fossan,

Thank you so much. Your message means a lot to us. We try our best to help whoever is interested in learning the Dharma. This website was one of Tsem Rinpoche’s most important Dharma works, it has taken and still takes an entire team of Rinpoche’s dedicated students to keep going. When we receive messages like yours, it makes everything worth it. We are happy to hear that we have been of service.

Regarding Losar advice for 2024 from Dorje Shugden through the Panglung Oracle, the oracle did not take trance this year as far as I am aware, so no advice was given for 2024.

Thank you

Dear Lee,

Thank you for your question and nice to see you here. While the actual divination texts/manuals are publicly available these days, engaging in divination entails quite a lot than just simply doing prayers. There are long procedures of training involved including retreats, etc, in order for a practitioner to make a connection with the deity and to qualify to actual perform divinations.

While the text and manuals are available, engaging in them without the proper qualifications can be dangerous. Among other things, the answers received won’t be accurate, because the practitioner doesn’t actually have a strong connection with the deity.

It’s too much to explain in this short space. But you can read an article regarding Dorje Shugden divination here: https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/buddhas-dharma/dorje-shugdens-dice-divination.html The same procedures and training apply to all forms of Tibetan Buddhist Divination.

I hope this helps.

Dear Rojal,

All Buddhist practices necessarily involved the purification of karma and the generation of merit. So any Dharma practices you do, whether formal practice like sadhana, meditation, etc. or informal practice such as transforming your mind in daily life, etc, all generate merit and purify negative karma. The best of all of these is transformation of the mind and spiritual growth.

There are however, many practices that focus on either purification of karma and generation of merit. To have a better idea of the context of this, you can read this article: https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/buddhas-dharma/how-to-purify-your-karma-in-kechara-forest-retreat.html

In addition, in relation to purification of negative karma, these articles are indespensible:
https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/buddhas-dharma/vajrasattva-and-prostrations-transcript.html
https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/prayers-and-sadhanas/an-important-purification-practice.html
https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/buddhas-dharma/the-35-confessional-buddhas.html

We hope this helps. Thank you.

Dear John,

Sosordrangma is the deity’s Tibetan name. Her name in Sanskrit is Pratisara. She is found primarily within chapter fifteen of the Vajrapanjara Tantra. In the Vajrapanjara Tantra, she is associated with two other deities who are Bhutadamara Vajrapani and White Prajnaparamita. She is also related to the Hevajra Tantras. Her practice descends primarily via the Jonang lineage and has since been included within the Rinjung Gyatsa collection of sadhanas or daily practices. Pratisara is specifically propitiated to protect women who are pregnant as well as from various physiological ailments associated with women.

She provides excellent and effective protection against problems related to feminine health, both physical and mental, and is especially beneficial for pregnant women or those who wish to bear children. In general she also bestows powerful protection from negative influences, increases positive energies, and helps overcome life’s challenges. Hope this helps.

You can find a thangka of her here: https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/one-minute-story/pratisara-a-buddha-for-women

Thank you!

Dear Luna,

Thanks for your question. This actually has to do with the way that the Lamrim teachings are practiced. Most people think that just reading or studying the Lamrim is the be all and end all of the teachings, but that actually isn’t even practising the Lamrim. The Lamrim teachings are meant to be contemplated/visualised in meditation. Studying or understanding the Lamrim on an intellectual level is the step before actually practising the Lamrim.

So for example, if we are focusing on the suffering of the lower realms, we actually visualise this and contemplate the types of sufferings in those realms, not just for ourselves but others as well. That way, we change our behaviour from negative ones to positive ones, because as we learn in the Lamrim, rebirth in the lower realms is due to negative karma. Negative karma comes from negative actions. Hence, when we engage in the contemplation/visualisation of this, over time we naturally change our behaviour so it is less negative.

However, in order for the Lamrim, or any other teaching for that matter to have a transformational effect, it has to be practised (contemplation/visualisation). But just doing this is not enough to transform our minds, because of two things – 1) the sheer amount of negative karma that we have and 2) lack of merit. That is why in Buddhism we place great emphasis on reversing these by purifying negative karma and generating merit.

In the Lamrim, (excuse me, I am paraphrasing) it says something like: ‘your mind will only transform when you generate much more merit and purify your negative karma and delusions. You won’t have realisations if you try to internalise (contemplate/visualise) the Lamrim teachings without invoking the merit field to request them for their blessings (part of this necessarily include purification of negative karma and generation of merit).’

So the prayers and visualisation as taught in the Lamrim are very important for these two functions: generating merit and purifying negative karma. At the same time, you gain the blessings of the enlightened beings to successful in your meditation. These are part of what are known as the Prepatory Practices. Basically, these are practices to help you prepare for something, in this case, it is meditation on the Lamrim topics to transform your mind. The prepatory practices are all very important.

You can read the sections on the Prepatory Practices again, this time when you read, try not to get too caught up in what to visualise, but read it to understand better why all of this is done. Then later, when you read it again, you can learn up the visualisations better.

Alternatively, you can incorporate the Lamrim teachings into your daily sadhana also. Your daily sadhana has the effect of purifying karma, generating merit and gaining blessings. You can do contemplation on the Lamrim topics before the completion dedication of your sadhana. If you recite prayers such as the Three Principal Aspects of the Path or the Yonten Shugyurma prayer you can do the contemplations at those specific verses. The manner in which the prepatory practices are described in the Lamrim teachings are from the point of view of practicing Lamrim by itself, but you can definitely include meditation on the Lamrim topics into your normal daily sadhana as well. I hope this helps. Thank you.

Dear Anonymous,

Thank you for your questions.

In regards to your first question, here is a part of Tsem Rinpoche’s teaching (https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/buddhas-dharma/how-to-purify-your-karma-in-kechara-forest-retreat.html):

“As I have shared before, during the Buddha’s time, he had a student who was not very intelligent, an old monk. And when this old monk memorised the first word, when he got to the second word, he forgot the first word. When he went back to the first word, he forgot the second word. And he’d yo-yo back and forth like that. And he was very frustrated so he asked the Buddha what he could do because he was having such a hard time memorising and understanding the Dharma due to his very, very, very, poor memory. And so the Buddha said, “Visualise a temple, the shoes of the monks, the floor, the surrounding area, the garden, the trees and all that as your mind. And all the leaves that have fallen as your karma, and your kleshas, your obstructions, your obstacles. Think of all the dirt, think of all the dust, as your kleshas and your obstructions and your negative karma, and every day clean it. And recite this DÜ PUNG DRI MA PUNG, DÜ PUNG DRI MA PUNG, DÜ PUNG DRI MA PUNG. Remove my defilements, remove its leftovers. Remove my defilements, remove the leftovers, the stains.. So, to recite that every day carefully and to visualise it carefully and do that.”

So when you are cleaning, you visualise that you are cleaning the defilements from your mind, you can recite “DÜ PUNG DRI MA PUNG, DÜ PUNG DRI MA PUNG, DÜ PUNG DRI MA PUNG.” or “Remove my defilements, remove its leftovers.” Or you can recite mantras of purification such as Vajrasattva.

In regards to your second question: from the Tibetan Buddhist viewpoints you would not burn mantras or images of or associated with the Three Jewels. However, the specific mantras on the blanket, may be for this specific purpose. We wouldn’t be able to give you a definitive answers as we would need to know the specific mantras, prayers, images on the blanket.

Hope this helps. Thank you.

Dear Jason,

You’ve asked a very interesting follow-up question. Generally speaking, yes if you are in samsara, then you are always creating more karma. That’s why the goal of Buddhists is to be liberated from samsara. The Buddha and other enlightened beings achieved this and the practice of Dharma itself is geared towards achieving this.

I’ll try to explain it here, hopefully I can do so in such a short space. So, normally there is no way out of samsara, but when you practice the Dharma there is. Remember in my previous reply to you, I mentioned that there are differing levels of severity of karma? Some are heavier, some lighter, etc. When practising the Dharma, you reduce the amount of karma that you produce. When you have less effects of karma, due to less negative karma itself, you can focus more on the spiritual practices that lead to liberation.

I’ll take the examples of the Refuge vows. There are 10 of them, split into three categories related to the body, speech and mind. First is the body, which includes to abstain form killing, as killing creates negative karma. The in the speech section, it includes to abstain from lying. This is harder to do. What is easier – to abstain from killing another human being, or lying to another person. The easier one is not to kill. Hence, you train yourself in this manner, working from those actions that are easiest to avoid, working up to those that are harder. For example in the mind section, one of the vows is not to covet something that another person has. But this is harder to do than either not lying or not killing.

In other words, in our spiritual practice, we reduce the karma that we create though the actions of our body, speech and mind. Since we have less karma, we suffer less. And then finally, we are get to really subtle levels of karma, which are like residue in our mindstreams. But it’s still there. In order to get out of samsara, you need to realise what we call emptiness (which is way to complicated to talk about here). In other words, the very path of the Dharma is to reduce the karma we create, starting with the easiest and working up to the hardest, which is where it becomes the easiest to understand emptiness.

This who journey is a process, that’s why teachings such as the Lamrim are indesipensible as it shows us the actual way to practice. Normally, we are stuck in Samsara. But when we practice the Dharma and ultimately realise emptiness (there are many, many steps in between) we are able to get out of samsara completely. This may sound confusing, which is why in Buddhism study, understand and practice is very important.

We have Dharma classes available, where you can learn and find out more: https://www.kechara.com/learn/dharma-classes/

I hope this helps.

Dear Jason,

Thank you for your question. In essence, any action that causes another person harm or suffering whether physical or emotional generates negative karma. But karma is complicated and not as simple as we usually think about it. There are differences in level of severity of karma created, some can be very light and some can be heavy. These are due to the variables when creating karma, such as motivation, the actions, your feelings after it, etc. This can all be found in teachings that talk about karma, especially the Lamrim teachings.

In Buddhism we teach that we need to avoid the creation of negative karma for sure. But simply by being stuck in samsara, there is actually no way out of creating karma. That is why Buddhists seek to be free from samsara altogether. Only when we are free from samsara, are we free from the creation of karma.

In relation to your situation, if you are young and rely on your parents, for now you should try not to do things that are create division or disharmony within the family environment. That itself if the practice of the Dharma. Then later, when you are independent you can make more of an informed choice about what you want to do.

Even in your current situation, you can practice the Dharma, it is not necessary to become a monk or nun to progress on your spiritual path. Dharma can be practiced in any environment, and actually practising towards our family is the best. When we transform our minds and our behvariours and they see just how beneficial this transformation is, this is the best way to show them that Dharma is good. This was a piece of advice that Tsem Rinpoche used to tell people in family situations all the time.

I hope this helps you.

Dear Rojal,

Thank you for your question. In regards to meeting your guru, there are many different ways. These days you can meet your guru online as well. For example, many people did not meet Tsem Rinpoche personally, but they consider him to be there guru. You may find this article interesting: https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/buddhas-dharma/the-guru-protocol-a-guide-to-knowing-who-your-guru-is.html

In regards to tantra, yes, one definitely needs a qualified guru to bestow initiation and teach us the path of practice once you have initiation. In regards to our tradition, it is also considered necessary to have a guru to attain full enlightenment. Hope this helps. The article lined above will definitely help to answer some of your questions on a deeper level. Thank you.

Dear Rojal,

Thank you for your questions. It’s always nice to see you here wanting to learn more.

Yes it is definitely possible to deepen your practice in your sleep. This is done during practice of Highest Yoga Tantra, after receiving initiation and progressed along generation stage practice. This would obviously include everything before receiving such iniation such as having a basis and grounding in the Three Principle Aspects of the Path and the Lamrim teachings. In this practice you are able to use sleep to engage in meditation. This would need you to be able to lucid dream before hand.

The ability to lucid dream itself can be developed a number of ways, but the most common is single-pointed mediation concentration during waking life. This is also known as Shamatha meditation. But in this case, the object of your meditation should be a mental one, rather than a physical one. The best would be a visualisation of the Buddha. All of this is outlined in the Lamrim teachings in the section on developing concentration.

In terms of Astral Travel, yes it is definitely possible, and again there are different methods to go about this. Again this should be done only after having received the appropriate intiations and teachings from your guru. However, there are quite a few dangers involved with this. As Tsem Rinpoche mentioned before, the two main ones is that your consciousness is not able to return to your body and two that a spirit can take possession of your body if your protection is not strong and you have not invoked a Dharma protector to help with protection aspects.

Another thing about astral travel, is that even if learn how to do it, it is not necessary that you can actually visit pure lands or receive teachings, etc. This is because, to do this, would require a lot of merit. So there are many things and practices to develop merit before you should engage in it. Often times, people who claim that they have received teachings or visited purelands, actually haven’t though they may think that they did. It could simply be a projection of one’s mind and in some serious cases perhaps even due to spirits mascarading.

If you would like to learn lucid dreaming, please look into the teachings of single-pointed concentration normally. The ability of lucid dreaming comes naturally for those who progress in their shamatha meditation. As for astral travel practices, I would advise not to engage in such practices unless you receive the appropriate initiations, teachings from and under the strict supervision of a qualified guru. Hope this helps.

Dear Dirji,

We are sorry, but we do not understand your question. Perhaps because you asked using the english phoenetics of the word. If possible, please post again using either the English translation of the word or using the Tibetan script, so that we can help you properly.

Thank you.

Dear Marc,

Thank you for your question. You can find a translation of the meaning of Tsem Rinpoche’s name mantra on Kechara’s Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=683136630510067. Hope this helps. Thank you.

Dear Rojal,

We can understand that you feel this way, and seeing the illusion of life should definitely motivate us to want to achieve something more spiritual. In the past when people asked Tsem Rinpoche the same question, he used to tell people a couple of things:

> The first is that there are two methods to deal with our spiritual path. The first is to physically renounce everything and go into the wilderness, like Buddha Shakyamuni and Milarepa did. To cut yourself from everyone and everything and meditate continuously for years until you achieve realisation. But this is very hard to do in our day and age. We still need to have contact with people, there are the necessities of life to think about. Rinpoche said we need to think about things from a practice angle also. It takes a very great level of practitioner with an immense store of merit to be able to do this successfully.

> The second method is to keep living within our a community and use them as a support for the transformation of the mind and spiritual progress. For example, that it why we have monasteries and nunneries, or Dharma centres and organisations to help with spiritual practice. This method is more measured, but you can still gain the same results. This is the more practical method. Especially according to the Mahayana path of practice, Bodhisattvas need to practice certain qualities in our minds and we progress towards enlightenment. Such qualities include the Six Perfections, but if we are not around others, how do we practice them? In order to practice generosity, we need others to be generous towards. In order to practice patience, we need others to be patient towards. In order to practice morality and ethics, we need to be in situations to be able to practice our vows. Enlightened beings like Buddha and Milarepa were able to do all of this in their minds during meditation but as mentioned before they were already high level pracitioners with immense merit. For example, Buddha Shakyamuni had three countless aeons of consistent practice life time after life time until his achieved enlightenment.

> Another thing that Rinpoche shared, that while understanding the drawbacks of life and the benefits of becoming enlightened, a lot of the time what happens these days is that it is mixed up with emotion due to the challenges of life. People are looking for an escape, but not an escape from samsara into enlightenment, but simple an escape from their current problems. The need for escape, known as renunciation in Buddhism, is not to simply escape samsara, but developed in a certain way through contemplation and meditation. When we have such feelings, we should analyse them to see if they are in accord with the teachings and the methods of developing true renunciation. Many people also have a unrealistic way of thinking about physical renunciation and the spiritual path in general. Most people think it is easy, but it is not, is difficult because we need to deal with our minds, our emotions, our traumas, etc, from countless lives. If we don’t have a firm foundation in Dharma practice and transformation before we attempt something like Buddha Shakyamuni or Milarepa, we will give up after a while because we find it too hard. And perhaps give up spiritual practice because the path did not actually match our expectations. So the key is to be as realistic as possible about our spiritual path.

So our advice, rather than give up everything, as you may have family or other responsibilities, is to use your current situation to transform your mind, to practice the teachings right now in life, so that you can start progressing along the spiritual life. The best way to do this is to practice the Lamrim teachings, which give you a firm roadmap of how and what to practice in a sequential manner. Giving up everything is not necessary to make real progress on the spiritual path, as outlined in the Lamrim, but sustained and consistent practice is the key. Then use the situations in your life to actualise that transformation. We hope this helps.

Dear Jason,

Thank you for your question. We are very happy to hear that Tsem Rinpoche’s Dharma talks have inspired you, especially to practice patience and kindness towards others. Please do keep it up, the benefits of both qualities are immense and are central to spiritual transformation.

We should always try our best to practice both patience and kindness, but sometimes practising it in the way we think may not be the best option. For example, in the case that you mentioned, it is not having the right effect on your own mind and also you are enabling your co-worker to exhibit negative behaviours as well.

In this case, actually practising kindness would not be to become a pushover, taking more responsibilities, etc. This isn’t beneficial for your or the co-worker. So here, practising kindness would actually be not to allow the person to do such things, but it should be practised with patience and not out of emotion. So you would do this in a very skilfful manner. The best would be to have a talk with your co-worker in a very calm manner and explain how you are feeling and how they are making you feel in the work environment, and try to sort out the situation before it progresses. Especially since you are having such thoughts of anger and the posibility of lashing out.

Practicing kindness and patience is not at all become a push over or allowing others to skip out on their responsibilities, etc. We really hope this helps. Thank you.

Dear Sok,

Kusha grass and Durva grass are two different types of grass, they are not the same.

Kusha grass is also known as halfa grass, big cordgrass, or salt reed-grass. Its scientific name is Desmostachya Bipinnata. In shape, each blade of grass is long and straight.

Durva grass is also known as bermuda grass. Its scientific name is Cynodon Dactylon. In shape, each blade looks segmented and has smaller leaves sprouting from it.

You can google the scientific name to see the difference between the two.

Generally, they can be bought at Indian religious stores if there are any nearby where you live. Alternatively, if you live in Asia, you can buy a traditional grass broom, which you can substitue for the Kusha grass. It is a close relative of Kusha grass and the lamas have said that it can be used as substitue if you cannot find the actual grass.

I hope this helps. Thank you.

Dear Bhavisha,

Local deities are not enlightened. They are sentient beings who look after or take care of a specific area. There are different names for these types of beings, such as local deities, Land God, Landowner deities, etc. They belong to the God Realm, but as other beings in the god realm, they are not enlightened. Hope this helps.

Dear Rojal,

Nice to see you back here!

Shamatha is a tool, basically through this meditation you develop single pointed concentration. But after developing that, you use it to engage in Vipashyana meditation, otherwise known as Special Insight.

Different traditions have different version of Special Insight. In our tradition, we use this type of meditation to analyse what we call “emptiness.” The teachings on the emptiness are the actual teaching that leads to enlightenment. All other teachings or practices help to prepare your mind to be able to do this.

Shamatha comes in, because the topic of emptiness is so deep, that we need single-pointed concentration to analyse it. If we don’t have this type of concentration, we will not be able to understand emptiness. Hence, shamatha and vipashyana meditation are used in tandem to achieve enlightenment.

This may seem a little abstract. The Lamrim teachings go into this in a lot of detail. They can be found in the chapters dealing with the Concentration and Wisdom as part of the Six Perfections in the Great Scope sections of the Lamrim.

Hope this helps. Thank you.

Dear Jonathan,

Thank you for your question. There is no one heart disciple of Tsem Rinpoche. This usually refers to specific person who carries on the teachings and practices of a particular teacher. Tsem Rinpoche wanted something different for Kechara, hence we carry on his teachings and practices as a group, rather than one specific person.

Rinpoche trained his students, who are either Sangha, Pastors or senior students in various ways of continuing his teachings, especially through the work that they do. In this way, we continue Rinpoche’s teachings as a group rather than any one heart disciple.

Hope that this helps. Thank you.