• Click here to find out more about Amitayus initiation.
• Amitayus sadhana can be obtained here.
• For those without initiation and would still like to engage in the practice, you can read the short prayer to Amitayus here.
• You can download a high resolution picture of Amitayus here.

Transcript: Amitayus Practice by Tsem Rinpoche

(Proofread by Antoinette Kass)

A few days ago, at the request of some people, I had given the Buddha of Boundless Light Amitayus initiation. The initiation was intended as a blessing, for people but I did say that if people want to take this up as a practice, they can and I will give a short explanation and that’s what today is about. Some people have requested it and I am going to give a short explanation on the practice of Amitayus Buddha and I am going to do it without a lot of rituals because it is for common, ordinary people who perhaps don’t have the time for long rites and rituals. And also they can just focus on the meditations and the recitations.

There are many emanations of Buddha, who, if we invoke upon, meditate upon, and we do prayers to, they can eliminate problems such as obstructions to long life, disease, they definitely can help. If we have a long life free of disease, with a sound, clear mind, we can do so much to benefit others and ourselves.

When our life is constantly threatened by disease or disasters or shortness of life, it is a tremendous obstacle, to say the least, to our spiritual practice. To be born in a country that you are allowed to practice, to be near a teacher, to have heard about Buddha’s teachings, to be able to, in the comfort of your own home, practice to improve your mind, to gain awareness, to gain clarity, to gain wisdom, to gain knowledge is really, really a rare congregation of different environmental, physical causes all coming into play. Even hearing the Buddha’s name and having faith is a rare occasion.

So when we have gotten such a perfect human body, perfect – meaning, it is sound, is operable, you know we are not paralyzed or something, we have a sound mind, and slow or fast, it doesn’t matter, and we have an operable body and we are near a teacher, and we have heard the dharma, we have the opportunity to learn and expand and become better, it is really, really a rare confluence of positive merits and prayers and blessings from previous lives.

So receiving a blessing of Amitayus is wonderful. Amitayus is a Buddha. It is the form of Amitabha Buddha in the form of a Bodhisattva. Amitayus is a fully awakened enlightened Buddha who has every power, blessings and benefits of every other Buddha in existence. And to summarise Amitayus as simply as a long life Buddha would be, not beneficial to what we want to do.

On a higher level, to do any of the Buddha practices and sadhanas – sadhana is a specific meditation and rites that are associated with the Buddha to bring us to a higher and awakened state of mind to enlightenment. So any Buddha’s practice and meditation, written and is in systematic form, we called it a sadhana. A sadhana is something that transforms oneself. In Tibetan, you call it a tagye. Ta is self, gye is to grow or to expand or to increase or to transform – so to transform from ordinary person to that of an awakened being. So sadhana is actually a practice of any deity. Tara sadhana, Amitabha sadhana, Vajrayogini sadhana, Lama Tsongkhapa sadhana, short or long – the purpose of a sadhana is to bring us to an awakened state.

And each Buddha has a special energy, a special power to help us in some ways. It is based upon the vows and promises they made before they became enlightened. Amitayus can grant us great compassion, wisdom, generosity, love, patience, effort, understanding of impermanence. But a side benefit is when you do Amitayus’s practice, your diseases heal, your fear heals, your inner diseases heal, your mental diseases heal, your scars, your emotional scars heal, your impatience and your desire and grasping towards things that harm you start to lessen and minimise.

The root cause of us taking rebirth – one of the root causes is desire. The desire for food, the desire for fun, the desire for entertainment, the desire for partners, the desire for pleasure, the desire for money, the desire for abundance, the desire for acquisitions. This desire that we have and we are constantly compelled and pushed and forced to act it out is the very cause for us to take rebirth endlessly and to suffer those rebirths.

So the purified energy of desire within the Buddhas, is Amitabha or Amitayus energy. So hence their body is red in color. The red represents ‘purified desire.’ So therefore when we overcome desire for all things outer and inner and we have come to rest our minds on an aisle of liberation, an island of liberation, we can totally see what existence is all about, and existence is about grasping towards things that actually bring us more problems, more sufferings and we don’t know it.

So therefore, Amitabha is a wonderful practice to do. Amitayus is a wonderful practice, Amitabha, Amitayus, no difference – is a wonderful practice for us to do, to heal scars that are emotional from inside, damages we have experienced from previous lives and this life. It is a very powerful practice to heal sickness and disease. It is a very powerful practice to also create the causes for us to not have very dangerous diseases or, when we have diseases, to heal, and it is a wonderful practice to practice and to engage in if we are sick. It will expedite healing. And if we recite the Amitayus mantra and blow it on our medication, the medication will take on more energy, more power to heal our bodies.

And Amitabha sits in ki dug pa, means in meditation with the legs crossed, holding a long life vase at his hands, in his hands and his lap. His right hand is inside his left hand like so (Rinpoche shows position of hands), and the long life vase is being held facing towards you and phag sem ge shing, it has a wish fulfilling tree, a wish fulfilling stem growing from it or in it, and the water inside is ambrosial, a taste of this water is to heal all causes for taking rebirth in samsara and it overflows. And he is in a form of a youth, sixteen years old, wearing the six ornaments of the body, such as, the crown, armlets, bracelets, necklace, anklets, etc., and his top part of his body is bare, showing complete detachment and attachment to form, to projections and wrong view. And his hair is half-tied up in three knots and half flowing down over his shoulders and his face is blissful, smiling, peaceful, gentle and youthful, and his body sits straight and he looks straight at you with a body, like that of a ruby mountain, glowing, not flat, not hard, not stiff but glowing. So we should visualise Amitabha in that manner, and if we can, we should think that the teacher or the lama that we have taken teachings from, is one in nature with Amitabha, is one in nature with the enlightened, purified energy of desire of all the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and deities – we should think like that very strongly. And then we should have a simple altar, set up for Amitabha – Amitayus, which I will show you at this time.

(Rinpoche showing video of Amitabha / Amitayus altar)

I have a simple shrine set up that we can do in our homes, when we wish to do Amitayus practice. Let me describe to you what is necessary as part of this practice and what is extra. Now, basically we need an image, it can be a picture or a statue, whatever size you prefer – a poster, a thangka, a tsatsa of Amitayus. So you can have a tsatsa which is a small clay image. You can have a statue, how large, up to you – ten feet, ten inches, eleven inches, twenty feet, one feet – up to you. You can have a picture, you can have any representation of Amitayus – if it’s a statue, it will be very good. If you can have it filled with the proper mantras and then a Soongdruk puja and a Rabney puja done. If your statue is not hollow, then it’s fine, okay?

So you have a statue of Amitayus here, as I have here. And then you can have a statue, you can have an image of your lama or your teacher, in this case, I put His Holiness Kyabje Zong Rinpoche which is my root teacher. And then, you have a stupa and a dharma text, okay? You can have a stupa on this side, dharma text… there are different system how you set it up – I just put it on, it looks clean and neat. So you have basically, the body of a Buddha, the mind of the Buddha, and the speech of the Buddha, and the body, speech and mind – Buddha, dharma and sangha, the three representations of Buddha, dharma – Buddha’s body, speech and mind, and also where you obtain the dharma from, which is from our root teacher, from our teacher alright?

Can you have other images on your altar? Sure you can. Can you have more than one lama on your altar? Sure you can, but this is the basics. Then for this practice, you need to have one set of sensory offerings – water to drink, water to wash feet, flower, incense, light, perfume, fruit and music. And then, you need to have one torma or a sacrificial cake or a cake – that can be cookies, it can be fruit that should be changed every single day, which is shown here. And you have problems leaving cookies and snacks, I mean it can be biscuits, it can be potato chips, it can be popcorn, candy, whatever you like, and you can eat it afterwards when it’s being done. You can give it away as a blessing or eat it yourself.

As you can tell from the video, I have ate a lot of tormas, and blessings. Anyways, you can have this one here (Rinpoche pointing to tormas) and if you have a problem with infestation of ants and insects that come the minute you put the food, like we do, you can put it in a bottle alright, or you can elevate it and put water around it like a little moat. Anyways for these practices, that’s what you need. This is the basics – a Buddha image of Amitayus or any image, stupa, dharma book. If you like, your guru’s picture or you can simply visualise your guru in it, in Amitayus – the sensory offerings and the torma – so this is what you need – body, speech and mind of the Buddha, torma or the sacrificial offering and then the sensory offerings. Everything else you see here is extra. You can put extra flowers, you can put the eight auspicious signs, you can put more, more items if you like.

Let me repeat – for this particular Amitayus practice that you do every single day, an image of Amitayus, torma, t-o-r-m-a, and the sensory offerings, stupa, dharma book, any size you like. Of course, if you are not in the room, do not have your candle unattended, you should blow it out respectfully – you can recite ‘Om Ah Hum, Om Ah Hum, Om Ah Hum’ and then go like this (Rinpoche showing how to blow out the candle light) and wipe it off okay? The offerings can be set in the morning, afternoon, evening, just before you start your practice or it can be done just when you are about to start your practice. And when do you clean it?, whenever you like. Is there a timing that you should set your offerings? Not really.

Tibetans like to make offerings in the morning but you do it anytime you like okay? Because their morning is your evening, if you are in America, and if you are in America, your evening is our morning, so it doesn’t really make a difference.

So you can put the eight auspicious signs – victory banner which represents overcoming evil, the double fish which represents prosperity, the vase, the excellent vase which represents long life, the lotus that represents great compassion, spiritual attainments, the conch shell which represents fame and the growth of one’s spiritual practice, the eternal knot of happiness. Again, a banner representing royalty or overcoming mara which is, royalty meaning in this case, Buddha, overcoming mara, which is one’s inner demons and the wheel of dharma alright? Learning, obtaining, being near, being reincarnated, being born near dharma. (Rinpoche pointing to the banner).

So when you offer these eight auspicious signs and their meaning to Amitayus, you get back the results of what you have offered okay? So the basic offerings are there, this is how you should have set up everyday because you need this for your sadhana. Again, your guru’s picture, the eight auspicious signs and the flowers here are extra. You can put many more flowers. You can put many more rows of sensory offerings. You can just put maybe even rows of water offerings. You can put drinks, whatever you like. You can have bigger tormas, lesser tormas – what should you put in tormas? Anything you like except meat and alcohol for Amitayus practice. No meat and no alcohol.

Then, this is what you require on your altar, and then for this practice, I am not going to teach you how to do the varja, the bell, because I am going to make it simple for people but what you do require is an inner offering. You can have a small leak-proof container such as this (Rinpoche holding container) and it contains some tea and drops or a nectar pill. You can get a nectar pill from your lama. You can get a nectar pill from your dharma centre or you can get a nectar pill from somewhere. So what it means is that, a lama or monk or geshe or a place where they have the blessed nectar – you take a little and put in your nectar alright?

When you travel, it can be less (Rinpoche holding container) and if it dries up, you can put a little bit inside and rejuvenate it okay? You need this for your practice. If for whatever reason you are really like living far, far away from any dharma centre or any lamas, then, you just put some black tea in it and that will be good enough. And if it becomes mouldy, change it alright? If you have a blessing pill in it or a blessing nectar from another lama put inside, then what you can do is, you can take a little bit of it and put fresh tea and put a few drops in it so it’s regenerated.

If you are living in Kuala Lumpur, then I will be happy to give you some of mine to put in your inner offering. You can request one of my private office people – there’s five of them. We call them the POs alright? So you are going to need an inner offering – that’s the set up for the altar. Now let’s go back to the actual text.

The text I will be using – there are many texts of Amitayus practice but I am going to use one from Dechen Ling Press because it’s simple and short and clear translated by Mr David Gonsalez. I will provide the website for you on my blog post along with this video that shows you where you can buy this on line and then download it for your own usage.

So the text we are using here is The Life Nectar, Immortality, Self-Generation Sadhana of Amitayus in the traditional Machig Drupai Gyalmo – Dechen Ling Press. Now I want to stress again, I am not going to go heavy into the meditations, I am not going to go heavy into the practice and visualisations because this is for people who are very busy, who don’t have time or who are very elderly and I am going to make it very simple. Also in this practice I am not going to show you or teach you how to do the ritual objects, ritual items such as vajra and bell because I just want them to focus on the practice and meditation. So in this session I am making it very easy for everyone, so if you are very young, if you are elderly, you are on the go, you are busy, you have too many sadhanas or whatever, this will perfect for you.

This practice will help to heal inner, outer pains, expedite healing of disease. Can we do it for other people? Sure we can. We can dedicate it to them alright? Could we do it for animals? Perfect, perfect. Even, I can recommend that you can put a picture of the person you love or animal that you love, that is alive or dead, person and animal, put on your altar and ask Amitayus to bless them. And then it’s a wonderful mantra to recite and we can blow on animals. We can blow on ourselves. We can blow on malas, we can blow on rice to bless environments. We can even blow it on rice, dry rice to throw into water, to throw on the land, to throw into areas to bless the area alright?

Now these sadhanas page 3 – we start with taking refuge. Let’s make it very simple. Again, I am not going to be extensive okay? On your left is your mum, on your right is your dad, whether they are alive or dead, doesn’t matter. Your enemies or people who harm you are in the front. If you have no enemies, leave the front empty. Behind you are people who are close and surrounding you, are all sentient beings of the six realms, in the form of humans for auspicious reasons. And in front of you is Amitayus Buddha, surrounded by a retinue of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and Deities – that’s one visualisation.

The second visualisation you can do is simply yourself and Amitayus in the front, resplendent, glorious, fully enlightened, and the embodiment of your guru and all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and Deities, up to you. If you find it difficult to visualise Amitayus, then you can just visualise or believe he is there and that’s fine, and if that’s even difficult, just look at the statue of the image you have – that’s the purpose of having a shrine alright?

Then you take… This is for yourself. If it’s for someone else, you can visualise the person in front of Amitayus, prostrate with the hands folded or respectfully sitting there, receiving blessings from Amitayus – you can do that okay? Or animal. First you recite the refuge prayers that’s says here. When you get the text, you know what I am talking about. With that visualisation, you do –

I will go for refuge to the Buddha, the dharma and the sangha for the wealth of all living beings, I shall become Amitayus. So you do –

I will always go for refuge to the Buddha, the dharma and the sangha for the wealth of all living beings, I shall become Amitayus – 3 times. Then you think, you take refuge, which you trust the Buddha, the dharma and the sangha and the purpose of you doing this practice is that you will become a Buddha which is Amitayus in this case, to benefit all sentient beings. So you are taking refuge in generating the superior altruistic mind of enlightenment, bodhicitta.

Next is – blessing of the environment. As this is a tantric practice, you will be visualising yourself as a deity. If you are doing this practice, you do not do this visualisation. I am sorry, if you have not received the initiation of this practice, then you don’t do the visualisation – as I am about teach.

OM SÖBHAWA SHUDDHA SARWA DHARMA SÖBHAWA SHUDDHO HAM

– which is the mantra of emptiness and then everything becomes emptiness. Your body, the environment, your surrounding, everything dissolves into emptiness. From that emptiness – the emptiness meaning not out of nothing, the emptiness of projections, the emptiness of wrong view, the emptiness of wrong, false, grasping at existence. From this emptiness arises the letter PAM. You don’t have to use tibetan. PAM is P-A-M, the letter PAM. From the PAM it instantly becomes a lotus. On the lotus is a letter AH, a white letter AH that turns into a moon mandala. A PAM – that sits your own mind in a red letter HRIH and then together with this, you visualise instantly from the HRIH, you arise as Amitayus Buddha – that’s right. You visualise yourself as Amitayus Buddha. In tantra, you take the result or the fruit onto the path – meaning before you become a Buddha, you visualise yourself as a Buddha, to actualise your Buddha nature alright

So I repeat – from the letter PAM, it becomes a lotus. From the PAM on top, a red letter HRIH which is your consciousness. So you don’t look from outside at the HRIH. HRIH is H-R-I-H or H-R-I – up to you. Zong Rinpoche said that it is okay to visualise it in English letter or any language you prefer – it’s alright. So you visualise a HRIH like this – on top of the moon and the lotus, and you are not looking out at it – you are ‘that letter’, looking around you. I repeat, you are ‘that letter’ sitting on a moon disc and a lotus looking around you, looking out, so that it’s you. Then from that, it instantly transform into Amitayus Buddha and then…

This completely transform and I arise as a Conqueror Amitayus with the immeasurable life and wisdom for the red color body, one face and two hands in a mudra of meditative equipoise, and which a vase brimming with nectar and immortality. I sit in a vajra posture with all the marks and signs of a complete enjoyment body. My body is adorned with precious jewels and various silken garments. At my crown is an OM, at my throat is an AH, at my heart is a HUM.

So you arise as Amitayus, you have a white OM, O-M, here (Rinpoche pointing to his forehead). It says crown so you visualise here (Rinpoche pointing to his crown). Some is here, on the forehead. A white OM is here (Rinpoche pointing to his crown) O-M. A red AH is at the throat and a blue HUM is at the heart. That represents the body, speech and mind of all the Buddhas. Then from the HUM at your heart, you visualise light going out into the western direction, inviting the actual Amitayus to you. Then you visualise Amitayus coming to you and then you dissolve him into you by reciting the mantra –

DZA HUM BAM HO, DZA HUM BAM HO – never mind the mudras,

Just do the mantra – DZA HUM BAM HO.

Then DZA is him coming forth. HUM is, he is on top of you, BAM is, he dissolves into you. When you recite HO, he becomes one with you. So you and the actual Amitayus are one. Then, you should think that “…” and it says here ‘the Commitment Being’ and the Wisdom Being becomes inseparable. The Commitment Being is yourself and the wisdom being is Amitayus – become inseparable. So that’s the first page. After that, again, from your heart, is a letter HUM – light rays radiate out invoking the empowering deities in the space before me.

So the five Dhyani “…” empowering deities represents the Five Buddha Families or the Five Dhyani Buddhas: Amitabha, Akshobhya, Amogasiddhi, Ratnasambhava and Vairochana. These are the Five Buddha Families coming on top and they are similar to Amitayus, except Vairochana is white, Amitabha is red, and Amogasiddhi is green, Ratnasambhava is yellow, Akshobhya is blue. So these are Five Buddhas coming forth, holding vases and they pour nectar from the vases – same vase as Amitayus is holding and they recite this mantra, while you are reciting –

OM AH SARWA TATHAGATA ABHISHEKATA SAMAYA SHRIYE HUM

Then you should think that – they initiate you with the nectar and your whole body is Amitayus filled up, and you are filled with bliss and filled with happiness and all stains of self-grasping and desire and hatred are eliminated and then a little bit of the nectar overflows on the crown of your head, this one transform into another Amitayus adorning your head. So you are Amitayus, then you have a crown, then you have a top knot. Between the crown and the top knot sits another Amitayus and that is your guru. So you should visualise yourself as Amitayus with your guru in the form of Amitayus blessing you. Why? Without the guru, in Tantra, there is no enlightenment.

Then the next one is, we bless our inner offering. The inner offering – you do not open till you recite this mantra because there are beings around that can steal the essence – it is said. So you recite the mantra as it says in the text –

OM BENZA AMRITA KUNDALI HANA HANA HUM PHAT

OM SOBHAWA SHUDDHA SARWA DHARMA SOBHAWA SHUDDHO HAM

I repeat, you do not open it and leave it open. Sometimes assistants or people, they just leave it open like that, it is not correct. It should be closed and sealed at all times. Then when the lama is going to do the practice, he opens it himself and if your bottle is small, it is like that (Rinpoche showing the lid slightly covered) but actually if the opening is big and the cover is big, you never leave it fully exposed and opened. It should be slightly covered, but if you cannot do it, it’s okay. But usually it should be slightly covered, never open like that. So it’s only doing the mantra. I repeat, when you are reciting the mantra on page 4 here –

OM BENZA AMRITA KUNDALI HANA HANA HUM PHAT

OM SOBHAWA SHUDDHA SARWA DHARMA SOBHAWA SHUDDHO HAM

When you recite, OM BENZA AMRITA KUNDALI HANA HANA HUM PHAT, the obstacles are dispelled. Then you bless and you recite –

Everything becomes emptiness. From the sphere of emptiness, from a YAM comes a wind, from RAM comes a fire, from AH a grate of three human heads. Above this from a AH comes a broad and extensive skull cup. Inside are the five meats and five nectars. These are purified, transformed and increased by the three letters, and become a great ocean of uncontaminated nectar okay?

So I don’t know how extensive I can get into that. I think what you do is this – I think I won’t go too detail into the five meats and the nectars. I think for our purposes in this, to make it simple, we just visualise the inner offering, and we recite the verses and we think it’s blessed. There is an extensive meditation for it, which you have the five meats, you have the five nectars, such as – horse, dog, human, cow, etc and then you have the five nectars such as – urine, blood, bile, semen, etc but I think it gets too complicated.

So what you do is, you visualise your inner offering as you see it, and then you visualise OM AH HUM on top. So let’s say this is your inner offering – (Rinpoche holding the inner offering), you have the OM closest to the offering, AH next up, it’s going up, and HUM on top. Then you visualise OM AH HUM lights going out to the ten directions inviting the essence and blessings of all the Buddhas dissolve into that. Then the first time you recite OM AH HUM “…”. Actually if you want to do it extensively, OM, HUM – the letter HUM purifies all faults of colour, smell and potentiality. AH transforms it into nectar, OM multiplies and increases it. OM AH HUM, OM AH HUM, but that is going to get quite extensive. So what you do is this, I make it simple for you – you just visualise your nectar as it is, and believe it is what is said in the text, that is good enough for practitioners, for now.

And then OM AH HUM on top – you visualise from OM AH HUM, lights go out to the ten directions, comes back and dissolves, and the first time you recite OM, it falls in, then the second time you recite OM AH HUM, AH falls in, the third time you recite OM AH HUM, HUM falls in.

So the first recitation OM AH HUM – OM goes in, the second recitation – AH goes in, the third recitation of OM AH HUM – the third one goes in. So it becomes purified, clean, becomes nectar and never ending and has the power to bless and consecrate. I think that will be easier for all of us okay? Then after it has been blessed, it should be on your table, you use your left ring finger and flick it to bless your sensory offerings.

OM BENZA AMRITA KUNDALI HANA HANA HUM PHAT

I mean you don’t have to stick your whole finger and flick until you see sparks all over the place – just a very light one, just very light okay?

OM BENZA AMRITA KUNDALI HANA HANA HUM PHAT – dispelling obstacles, then you dissolve the offerings by reciting –

OM SOBHAWA SHUDDHA SARWA DHARMA SOBHAWA SHUDDHO HAM

Everything becomes emptiness. From the state of emptiness, it says here – from

KAM “…” so the eight letters of KAMcomes a vast and expansive skull cup. The skull cup why it’s not a real skull. The skull cup represents impermanence and death to do your practice well, it is a reminder. Inside is eight HUMs. So you have eight KAMs. Inside the eight KAMs “…”. You have eight cups, inside the cups, you have eight KAMS in each, K-A-M. Sorry, you have eight KAMs, from that arises the skull cups. Inside the skull cups, you have eight HUMs. From the HUMs arise water for drinking, water for bathing, water for flowers, I mean water for drinking, water for bathing, flowers, incense, lights, perfume, food and music.

So I repeat – OM BENZA AMRITA KUNDALI HANA HANA HUM PHAT.

Then you purify the obstacles and interferers.

OM SOBHAWA SHUDDHA SARWA DHARMA SOBHAWA SHUDDHO HAM

Then the eight sensory offerings dissolve. From that arises eight KAM. K-A-M. KAM turn into skull cups, within the skull cups is eight HUMs. The HUMs become the eight sensory items that are contained inside – water for drinking, water for bathing, flowers, incense, light, perfume, food and music. Then you recite –

By nature of emptiness, they have the aspect of the individual offerings substances that operate as well for the enjoyment of the six senses to bestow exalted, uncontaminated bliss. The uncontaminated bliss is that of pure emptiness, the great bliss arises from direct perception of emptiness. If you don’t know exactly what that is, just recite it, it’s okay, just recite it. Then you bless each of the eight offerings by inserting within OM AH HUM okay?

So the first one is –

OM ARGHAM AH HUM
OM PADÄM AH HUM
OM BENZA PUPE AH HUM

It is written here VAJRA – you can recite OM VAJRA or OM BENZA – up to you. Tibetans recite VAJRA as BENZA – the actual sanskrit word is VAJRA, up to you. So I do it the Tibetan way because my teacher gave it to me like that.

You blessed the eight items by reciting –

OM AHRGHAM AH HUM
OM PADÄM AH HUM
OM BENZA PUPE AH HUM
OM BENZA DHUPE AH HUM
OM BENZA DIWE AH HUM
OM BENZA GÄNDHE AH HUM
OM BENZA NEWIDE AH HUM
OM BENZA SHAPTA AH HUM

If you have ritual items which you don’t require, as I have said earlier, you can do the mudras – (Rinpoche doing the mudras)

OM AHRGHAM AH HUM
OM PADÄM AH HUM
OM BENZA PUPE AH HUM
OM BENZA DHUPE AH HUM
OM BENZA DIWE AH HUM
OM BENZA GÄNDHE AH HUM
OM BENZA NEWIDE AH HUM
OM BENZA SHAPTA AH HUM – that’s up to you okay?

Once you recite that, think the sensory offerings are pure, they are clean, they bestow great bliss, and it’s not just what you see in the front, they are as big as oceans like eight huge oceans of offerings. Eight huge offerings, oceans of water and perfume and light and food and fruits. You can visualise all of that okay? Then the blessings are purified.

We have taken refuge, generated the altruistic mind, dissolves ourselves into emptiness, from emptiness we arise as Amitayus, then we bless the inner offerings, after blessing the inner offerings, we bless the outer offerings. Now we are doing outer offering generation. So we recite –

OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA AHRGHAM PRATITZA YE SÖHA and so on.

Now you are doing the offerings to Amitayus. By offering the sensory items to Amitayus, you gained the benefits of these offerings such as – wisdom, always having plentiful needs and food and shelter and also being able to hold ethics and morality, being able to obtain wisdom, great bliss – you get that from offering the sensory items – in short. So what we are doing is this, you recite it but you make the offerings by saying –

OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA AHRGHAM PRATITZA YE SÖHA – By reciting that, you offer drinking water to Amitayus. The next one is –

OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA PADÄM PRATITZA YE SÖHA

– you are offering water for bathing to Amitayus which purifies one’s obscurations.

Then the next one is –

OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA PUPE PRATITZA YE SÖHA – offering beautiful flowers to Amitayus which represents getting rid of grasping towards so-called ‘pleasant’ objects which actually in nature are not pleasant. The next one is –

OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA DHUPE PRATITZA YE SÖHA – Dhupe is incense and this represents being able to hold morality, ethics, one’s refuge vows, one’s Bodhisattva’s vows and Tantric vows. The vows, the roots of our attainments. By offering incense, we create merit to hold our vows very well. The next one is –

OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA ALOKE PRATITZA YE SÖHA – Aloke is light. By offering light or candle, it can be electrical also – it represents illumination, wisdom, clarity, understanding. We gain those qualities in the future by offering these to the Buddha Amitayus. The next one is –

OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA GÄNDHE PRATITZA YE SÖHA – Gandhe Pratitza Ye Soha is perfume. If you have a bottle of perfume, you can leave it there. You don’t have to change it everyday, you can change it once a month, once every two months, once every three months, up to you okay? Or if you don’t have perfume, you can simply put there a cup of water to represent perfume. So when you offer perfume, it’s offering tactile pleasures to Amitayus Buddha. He doesn’t need the pleasures, he doesn’t need the offering, it is for us to become detached from tactile attachments. The next one is –

OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA NEWIDE PRATITZA YE SÖHA – represented by the apple in this case – offering food. So you visualise pizzas, delicious drinks and fruits and nectars and whatever you like, you visualise it filling a whole ocean, offering it to Amitayus and you visualise all the people in the world who are hungry, who don’t have food, who are suffering – may they be free from hunger. And by offering food to Amitayus which he doesn’t need, you generate the merit of always getting your needs fulfilled to do dharma practice. So whatever you need to do dharma practice, it will be fulfilled in the future, creates this kind of karma. The last thing is –

OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA SHAPTA PRATITZA YE SÖHA – Shapta represents sound. The mudra is like this, like hitting a drum. If you are not doing mudra, you don’t need to do it. OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA SHAPTA PRATITZA YE SÖHA is offering sound, meaning the sound of dharma, the understanding of dharma, perpetuating dharma, learning dharma, spreading dharma okay? Then after you do that –

OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA AHRGHAM – you do all that, up to the last one, then you do your inner offering. When you do your inner offering, you don’t have to lift it up. I am lifting it up so you can see. You put your ring finger inside and you flick a little, and think that it creates great bliss in Amitayus mind for you to achieve enlightenment.

OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA OM AH HUM – When you say OM AH HUM, you flick it a little. Again you don’t have to dip your whole finger and like, ‘here Amitayus’ and he is like drowning in your nectar, you don’t have to do that.

So we offer the sensory offerings, then we offer the inner offerings which I just flicked and last we offer praise and it says right here-

Amitayus, Principal Guide of the world
Destroyer of all untimely death without exception
Refuge for those suffering and without a protector
To you Buddha Amitayus I prostrate

If we have our vajra bell, we can ring our bell at this time while doing this, if we don’t, we simply fold our hands. So the next one is mantra recitations. This part is very important.

Inside the vase of Amitayus at one’s crown, is a moon mandala upon which a red letter HRIH surrounded by the essence of long mantra. So remember we have our guru, who is on top who is Amitayus and he is holding a vase. Inside the vase is a letter HRIH and is surrounded by Amitayus short and long mantra. Then from the HRIH, lights emanate and make offerings to all the Buddhas. What kind of offerings? Let’s make it simple – the sensory offerings you offer up to all the Buddhas, many sensory offerings. Then at the same time, the lights from the HRIH, also go out and touches all sentient beings in the six realms, it blesses them, it purifies their karma and they arise as Amitayus. So you should think that everybody around you including people you don’t like, are Amitayus Buddhas and then the lights gather back from the Three Jewels and dissolves into a red HRIH.

Then from these light rays “…”. Again from the HRIH, sorry from the HRIH, light rays go out again and it goes out to the Lord of Death Yama, harmful spirits, and the lights come back and filled up the vase. So that means all negative energy that took away your life energy, you collect back. You are not inviting the negative energy to you. You are taking your energy back that was taken by negative energies, you draw that back. So you are not inviting negative spirits or the Lord of Death to you, you are taking your energy back from which they took – that’s your visualisation. And how do you visualise that? The long life energy returns to you in the form of long life vases and skull cups.

So you can visualise many long life vases coming back and dissolving into the mantra. You don’t have to think ‘oh, the vases are so big, come back and hit you on the head’, and you become dizzy. You just visualise it in the nature of light and it dissolves into a red HRIH okay?

Once again the essence of all the elements of life and merit of all living beings and things excellent in the three realms and blessings of body, speech and mind of all Buddhas and children are drawn back in the form of light rays and nectar and all these dissolve into the mantra HRIH. These fills the life-vase with nectar, as it overflows, the excess nectar spills over and enters through the Brahma aperture at the crown of my head filling the whole body and purifying all stains. I attain a state of immortality.

I just read the text and this is the visualisation. So this text is telling you what you need to visualise while you are doing the mantra. So it is very simple. On top of your head, you are Amitayus, on top of your head you have Amitayus, and on Amitayus, he is holding a long life vase, and in the long life vase, there’s a red letter HRIH. From the HRIH, lights go out – makes offering to all the Buddhas which generates merits, brings back the blessings in the form of lights, and the lights goes out and touches all sentient beings and all of them are purified and become Amitayus Buddhas. So everybody is Amitayus Buddha, remember that.

Then again, the lights go out to the Lord of Death, evil spirits and you draw back the energy they took from you and the lights go out to also the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and deities, and it draws back all the energy. It says Buddhas and the children. Buddhas are Buddhas, children are Bodhisattvas. Children are referred to as Bodhisattvas, and then all the lights of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas come back and dissolve into the HRIH and then it fills up the nectar, and the nectar overflows. It overflows onto your head and it comes down into your body and all the obstacles, diseases and difficulties in your body is expelled. It is pushed away.

You can visualise it leaving your anus into the ground, or you can simply visualise the white lights filling up your body. If you have a particular disease or problem, you visualise the lights going to that disease and purifying the disease. You do this visualisation strongly and with concentration while you recite the short mantra.

OM AMARANI ZEWENTEYE SÖHA, OM AMARANI ZEWENTEYE SÖHA, OM AMARANI ZEWENTEYE SÖHA

You can recite that mantra seven times, twenty-one times, one mala – up to you. Then after you finish that, if you have time, you can do the long mantra once or three times. If you don’t have time, you can skip the long mantra. The long mantra is – OM NAMO BHAGAWATE, APARIMITA, AYUR GYANA, SUMBINI TSITA TEDZÖ RANDZAYA TATHAGATAYA, ARHATE SAMYAK SAMBUDDHAYA, TAYATHA, OM PUNAYE PUNAYE, MAHA PUNAYE, APARIMITA PUNAYE, APARIMITA PUNAYE, GYANA SAMBHA ROPATSITE, OM SARWA SAMKARA, PARISHUDHA DHARMATE, GAGANA SAMUGATE, SÖBHAWA BISHUDDHE, MAHA NAYA PARIWARE SÖHA

I repeat, the short mantra is – OM AMARANI ZEWENTEYE SÖHA, and the long mantra is – OM NAMO BHAGAWATE, APARIMITA, AYUR GYANA, SUMBINI TSITA TEDZÖ RANDZAYA TATHAGATAYA, ARHATE SAMYAK SAMBUDDHAYA, TAYATHA, OM PUNAYE PUNAYE, MAHA PUNAYE, APARIMITA PUNAYE, APARIMITA PUNAYE, GYANA SAMBHA ROPATSITE, OM SARWA SAMKARA, PARISHUDHA DHARMATE, GAGANA SAMUGATE, SÖBHAWA BISHUDDHE, MAHA NAYA PARIWARE SÖHA

Don’t worry if you are not pronouncing the mantra perfectly. You do it to the best of your ability. I repeat, the short mantra, you should do as much as possible, everyday, especially if you are very ill. The long mantra, once or twice, three times after you finish the short mantra okay?

Then the next step is to generate more further merits for one’s attainments. You do the blessings of the torma of Amitayus. So you take your inner offerings, you don’t have to lift it up. I am lifting it up for you. You use your little finger, just a little tiny bit and you flick it. Sometimes you say, ‘oh, but I am so far away, so if I flick it, does it actually touch the item?’ It doesn’t matter, it is symbolic okay? So it doesn’t have to become some kind of ‘aiming contest’. If you hit it or not, then you take a look, did it actually touch the item – just.

OM BENZA AMRITA KUNDALI HANA HANA HUM PHAT

Offer the torma – remember the torma we have in front of Amitayus Buddha and then you recite – OM SOBHAWA SHUDDHA SARWA DHARMA SOBHAWA SHUDDHO HAM and you recite –

“Everything becomes emptiness. From the sphere of emptiness, from YAM comes a wind, from RAM comes fire, from AH a grate of three human heads. Above this from AH comes a broad and extensive skull cup. Inside are the five meats and the five nectars. These are purified, transformed and increased by the three letters, and become a great ocean of uncontaminated nectar.”

Now, I am not going to go into that visualisation. As I told you, it’s quite extensive and it’s not necessary. Now you may be taken aback to say ‘oh, human heads, skull cups – don’t take it literally. The human heads are visualised, they represent the purification of body, speech and mind. The skull cup represents impermanence. They are not actual human heads, they are not actual skull cups. They are just tantric visualisations. So don’t get too concern about that. Recite that line and then say OM AH HUM, OM AH HUM, OM AH HUM, three times and believe that the torma is purified.

Then the next one is – light rays radiate and invoke Amitayus from the pure land of bliss in the space before me. So you visualise lights from your heart going out inviting Amitayus in front of you dissolving into the statue and then you visualise from Amitayus tongue is a single spoke vajra – you just visualise tongue and lights go out and draws the tormas back as you recite this mantra –

OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA IDAM BALINGTA KHA KHA KHAHI KHAHI – three times
OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA IDAM BALINGTA KHA KHA KHAHI KHAHI
OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA IDAM BALINGTA KHA KHA KHAHI KHAHI

You don’t need to do the mudras, as I said, make it simple. Just recite the mantra three times and think that you have offered the tormas and Amitayus has received it and he is very happy and you generate the merit to increase your life and gaining medicine and nourishment and health.

The next one is offering the outer offerings, you recite –

OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA AHRGHAM PRATITZA YE SÖHA
OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA PADÄM PRATITZA YE SÖHA
OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA PUPE PRATITZA YE SÖHA
OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA DHUPE PRATITZA YE SÖHA
OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA ALOKE PRATITZA YE SÖHA
OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA GÄNDHE PRATITZA YE SÖHA
OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA NEWIDE PRATITZA YE SÖHA
OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA SHAPTA PRATITZA YE SÖHA

This is exactly like what we did earlier okay? So you offer that, then the inner offering – OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA OM AH HUM

Take a little bit of inner offering and flick it and then do the prayers –

Amitayus, Principal Guide of the world
Destroyer of all untimely death without exception
Refuge for those suffering and without a protector
To you Buddha Amitayus, I prostrate

Then, you have done with the sadhana, it’s very short and sweet, you have done with the sadhana and here, you request Amitabha and all the celestial beings to return to their own abode or you can visualise them stabilising your statue.

Then you do this mantra – OM VAJRA MU or if you do in Tibetan, OM BENZA MU. The mudra will be OM BENZA MU, requesting the enlighten beings to go back or stabilising your statue. And then you recite OM BENZA MU, the guest of the torma return to their natural abodes, and then for any mistakes that you have done or any omissions or deletions you have done by accident, you request forbearance and you think – forgive me for any mistakes, then you recite the Vajrasattva mantra one time – the long one.

OM VAJRASATTVA SAMAYA MANUPALAYA, VAJRASATTVA TVENO PATISHTA, DRIDHO ME BHAWA, SUTHOSHYO ME BHAVA, SUPOSHYO ME BHAWA, ANURAKTO ME BHAWA, SARVA SIDDHIM ME PRAYACCHA, SARVA KARMA SU CHAME, CHITTAM SHRIYAM KURU HUM, HA HA HA HA HO, BHAGAWAN BENZA SARVA, MAME MUNCHA, BENZA SARVA, MAHA SAMAYA SATTÖ AH HUM PHAT

It’s not in the text but you can easily find it. If you have a lot of problems reciting that long Vajrasattva mantra, I think recite the short one three times should be okay.

OM BENZA SATTVA HUM, OM BENZA SATTVA HUM, OM BENZA SATTVA HUM, and you are done.

You do the dedication verses here, it is very, very simple – and I read it for you.

Through the power of the blessing of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas
And my single pointed accomplishment of practice and prayers,
May we be cared for by our Lord and Master,
And may his life be as stable and limitless as Amitayus.

So you are wishing for your teacher and your guru to live long.

When I see the signs of untimely death
May I immediately see clearly the body of Amitayus,
And having destroyed the Lord of Death,
May I quickly become the knowledge-holder of life.
For many hundred years may I see a hundred harvests,
May there be long life free from illness with bliss and happiness,
May I definitely enter the Supreme Vehicle,
And may this auspiciousness arise now.

Supreme Vehicle means tantra.

May my life be clear and long like the sun that never sets,
And may my merit increase like the waxing moon.
May I be endowed with bravery as great as the stars in the sky,
And may my practice be endowed with the glory of complete bliss and happiness.

That’s the dedicationand when you have finished that, you are done with the sadhana. Today I have gone through the sadhana in a short easy form, because I have particular students in mind who would find extensive meditation, extensive explanation difficult for them for good reasons. So today I have done a very short explanation with offerings, reciting the sadhana together with you. I think that should be quite sufficient.

If you have problems doing any of the visualisations I have given, then you simply recite through the text, believe and trust in Amitayus, have altruistic thinking to benefit others, and then recite the mantra alright?

If you wish to do a short retreat, you can do the sadhana and recite the mantra up to one hundred thousand times. Actually in this tantra, it will be a hundred thousand per syllable – OM A MA RA NI ZE WEN TE YE SO HA. So actually if you are going to do a full retreat, you have to do 1.1 million because it’s one hundred thousand per syllable but let’s not get into all that, it gets complicated. I think it’s good enough to do whatever you can every single day as a daily practice. When you do this practice, if it’s for someone else, it will send energies of healing to them. If it’s for yourself, it will definitely increase your life, increase your wisdom, increase your merits and help you to overcome passions and desires that has engulfed you most of your life.

Remember when you are doing the offerings to Amitabha, when you are doing this practice to Amitabha or Amitayus Buddha, he is a fully enlightened being. He is fully enlightened. So don’t only pray to him to extend your life, pray to him for everything, it says in the dedication, which is to gain wisdom, compassion, altruistic mind, and in this life and all lives, be able to be born near the Buddha’s teachings, near a teacher, so you can practice.

This is what you do – doing your meditations every single day if you are doing Amitayus. When you are free and wandering around, when you are free and hanging around, you can also do the mantra. Can you do the mantra without the sadhana? You can, you can. Can people without the initiation do the sadhana? No. Can people without the initiation do the sadhana, no. People without this initiation just do the ‘praise’ and short mantra. Praise is –

Amitayus, Principal Guide of the world
Destroyer of all untimely death without exception
Refuge for those suffering and without a protector
To you Buddha Amitayus, I prostrate

Just recite the praise – OM AMARANI ZEWENTEYE SO HA

So for people who do not have the initiation, you may not do the sadhana because you are meditating on yourself being a Buddha and without the initiation, and planting the seeds and planting the potential in you, then it is not proper to visualise yourself as a Buddha. So for those who do not have initiation, can you invoke upon the Buddha Amitabha? Sure, you can, Amitayus. You just recite the ‘praise’ and you recite the short mantra everyday, that’s good enough.

For those who have the initiation, it’s your lucky day. You can do the whole sadhana, you should do the whole sadhana and definitely, it will benefit you in many, many ways. When you are done, you can clean up the offerings. You can take the torma, the cookies, biscuits, peanuts, crackers, whatever you put. You can eat it or you can give it to the birds but don’t flush it down the toilet or don’t throw it in unclean places okay? The water, you can put it onto plants and all that, and the candle, you can kind of put if off, if you are not going to be around. If you are around, safely you can put it there.

When you are travelling, do you need to have an altar? No, you don’t. If you are travelling, do you need to have the sensory offerings, you don’t. If you are in a hotel, it’s not convenient – you don’t. If you are travelling, you are in a hotel, then you don’t have to have the image, you don’t have to have the sensory offerings, you just do the sadhana.

Let me revised – those without initiation should not do the sadhana, just do the ‘Praise’ and the mantra. Those with initiation have the fortune to do the sadhana which is what I am holding here, and then everything else. Those without initiation can also make the offerings, it’s fine. So if you don’t have initiations, do the prayers, mantra and offerings – up to you. You don’t have to do the offerings. For those with initiation – you do the sadhana with the offerings. When you are travelling, when you are busy, you are sick, you are not well, you are ill or it’s not convenient – do you need to be in front of your altar, do you need to make offerings? No, you don’t. You do, it’s good. You do, it’s good because when you are doing the sadhana, you are offering – if there’s nothing to offer, it’s kind of strange. When you invite a friend over and say ‘have some tea, have some tea’ – there’s no tea. They are looking at you like ‘where’s the tea?’ So how can you say ‘oh you know, Mr or Mrs so and so, please have the tea.’ They are thinking, you must be bananas, there’s no tea here. Similarly, if you are doing Amitayus prayer, you are doing –

OM APARIMITA AYUR GYANA SAPARIWARA AHRGHAM – you are saying, oh Amitabha, have some water, there’s no water – it’s quite strange. But if you are travelling, all that – you just think, never mind. Amitayus will understand, today he doesn’t get some water. He doesn’t need the water. You need to offer the water. So therefore when you are travelling, it’s not convenient, you can’t make the offerings, is it okay to do the sadhana? Sure. Whatever it is, after initiation, whatever it is, do the sadhana, do the prayer, that’s most important. Do not say, ‘oh I skip the sadhana today so I don’t have to ever do it again.’ You skip the sadhana today, you don’t have to skip it tomorrow. If you forget to eat today, which I never forget, you don’t have to forget to eat tomorrow. If you forget to do your exercises today, you don’t need to forget to do it tomorrow.

So if you forget to do your mind exercises which is Amitayus practice today, you don’t need to forget tomorrow. So don’t make that as a reason to, not do your practice because you skip the day or you forgot today okay?

I think I pretty much cover everything for the short practice. I wish everybody good luck and I wish everybody supreme attainments and may the Buddha of Infinite Light from the Western Paradise, Amitayus bless all of you, give you very long life, heal diseases, prevent future diseases from coming.

GEWADI YI NYUR DU DAK
LAMA SANG GYE DRUP GYUR NA
DROWA CHIK KYANG MALU PA
DEYI SA LAGO PAR SHUG

Thank you very much and good luck.

Teaching by Tsem Rinpoche
19 March 2012 in Tsem Ladrang, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia