Transcription of the teaching before empowerment
Today will be the empowerment of Black Dzambhala, and actually I have already given you this initiation before. Last time the text of the practice was not ready in Russian, but now it is ready, and it is very long. So today I will give you the dedication. The text of the practice itself is more than 200 pages, it is also distributed among us, but I do not think that everybody will feel comfortable to perform such a long text every day. So today will be the initiation of Black Dzambhala, and tomorrow I will explain to you in a short form how to do this practice so that you will be comfortable to do it.
As for Dzambhala, in Sanskrit he is called Kubera, and also another form of him is Vaishravana. These are all forms of the same deity Dzambhala or Kubera, and many of you are certainly familiar with its practice, familiar with this deity. It is the deity of wealth and prosperity. He has the power to engender in us the ability to acquire specifically material wealth. He has that power.
It can be said that of all the aspects of Dzambhala – the best-known form is the Yellow Dzambhala. But actually, there are five of them. Five different aspects: yellow, blue, black, red and green Dzambhala. All of them have the ability to bless us to acquire wealth, wealth materially. But one of the most powerful or potent forms is specifically the Black Dzambhala.
Because there are different forms. Some Dzambhalas are depicted sitting, some standing. But the Black Dzambhala, he is standing. And therefore, he is one of the most powerful aspects. Because he acts faster than everybody else, he is ready for urgent action. And it’s the same thing when we humans are sitting. So, it rather means that we are in such a relaxed, calm state. We are sitting, we are not in a hurry to go anywhere. But if we are standing, it means that we are ready to go somewhere and do something right away. And the same is true of Black Dzambhala. He is standing. It means his immediate readiness to help us acquire everything we need for our well-being.
As for this Black Dzambhala, he was originally blessed to support living beings who are suffering from poverty, from poverty. But not only that. He also protects from the harm brought by the nagas. So, he belongs also to the land of the Nagas. And he is considered to be one of the kings of the Nagas. And so, he also protects from the harm brought by the nagas. This is also very important for us.
So, in our ordinary life we usually do what we wish, what we want. But the most important issue here is good motivation, good intention. And if we have a good motivation, then everything that we do, even some very ordinary little things, will become our perfect deeds. And they will gain completeness and wholeness with our good motivation and good intentions. In addition, good intentions also help us to appreciate the things we have already done, to feel satisfied with the things we have already accomplished. And accordingly, whatever we receive initiation, blessings, teachings, first and foremost good motivation is important. And then, if we have good motivation, good intention, then this initiation will bring us good energy and blessing.
Today’s initiation from Dzambhala begins with purification. The deities are already purified. The deities do not need to be purified; they have been purified from the beginningless time. Because of their purity, they take the form of bodhisattvas, who are different from ordinary common people. But in order to receive blessings from these purified deities, we must also purify ourselves. We must purify our body, speech, and mind. And in fact, this applies not only to Buddhism, but to any religion.
In every religion, receiving blessings is very important. Blessings depend on our motivation, on our degree of purity. This is generally considered quite logical in all religions, not only in Buddhism. So now when we are going to receive the precious initiation today, we should not think only that we want some good for only one person, for ourselves, so that we get wealth, so that we have money and so on. No, we get the blessing of body, speech and mind, and we also try to think that because of this blessing we will help all other living beings whom we can, that is to support others. And so, this motivation is high and is much more beneficial than thinking only about one’s own well-being, wealth, and so on.
For example, when we open some kind of savings account in a bank, the bonus we get depends on the amount of money we have invested. The more savings we have, the more bonus we get, and the same thing is related to motivation. The higher our motivation, the greater the benefit we will receive. If we have low motivation, if we are only thinking about ourselves, then that benefit will be very limited. So the better your motivation, the more bonuses you have. In this case we speak about bonuses meaning good merits. So, we are talking about accumulation of good merit. And today there will be a dedication, a blessing of Dzambhala’s body, speech and mind. Plus, also today will be the blessing of long life. And also there will be a blessing of protection from any negative energy that harms you. It all depends on your motivation. The more motivation you have to help others, the more you will receive the blessing, the more you will have purification.
The first would be cleansing with water. This is not an internal purification, but an external purification. Although actually the most important purification is not the purification of your body or speech, but the purification of your mind. For example, when you come home from work, the first thing you do before you go into the house is to wash your face, wash yourself, refresh yourself. You do this at the gate, at the door of your house, without even going in there yet. And the same thing happens in today’s initiation. First at the gate you have to wash yourself. And after that, when you remove some external obstacles, some big or small factors of negative energy that are trying to hinder your today’s initiation, you will be purified from them thanks to the first purification, which is the purification of the mind with water.
Receiving initiation is like getting to know some person. For example, when we want to get to know some person, for example, to get acquainted, there are different ways of getting acquainted with that person. You can get acquainted, learn about this person through some other people, through stories about this person. You can talk to him on the street, for example. But if you want to get to know him better, you go to his house. And there you understand how this person lives, how good or bad this person is. That is one thing to talk to a person on the street, and another thing to visit his house, and there you will know all habits, how he lives, his way of life, his family, how his house is furnished. And you will understand his tastes, get to know him as deeply as possible.
And the same is true of initiation. In order to know the deity as best as possible, you enter into his mandala. What is a mandala? A mandala is the palace or dwelling of that deity. And with all the doors you enter the mandala, in order to know him better on the level of body, speech and mind. So, you come to know the body, speech, mind, quality and deed of Dzambhala in the deepest possible way. That is why initiation is of such great importance. But initiation is not the only thing we receive. In addition to initiation, we also receive an oral appendage. That is, the mantras of that deity, some related to his practice. And after the oral impartation, that is lung, we get the thri. Thri is a commentary. Commentary is of great importance, because commentary is the contacting of the mind with the mind of that deity. And initiation is making contact with the whole family of that deity, in this case the black Dzambhala.
We purify our body, speech, mind, and eventually we are transformed into the body of Dzambhala himself. So, we become indistinguishable from Dzambhala. That is the purpose of initiation. But besides initiation, oral transmission is also very important. Because especially it has to do with establishing a connection with the speech of the deity. And the third thing is commentary. These three things, wang, moong and thri, that is initiation, oral transmission and commentary, are the three most essential points of Vajrayana.
And the second very important thing I would like to emphasize is that we ask ourselves the question: is just receiving initiation a guarantee of receiving blessings? Many people think that if they just received initiation, and without doing anything, just sitting at home, they will get a flow of wealth. After Dzambhala initiation, without any effort on their part, they think, “Well, we have received initiation, and now we are waiting for the riches to fall on our heads.” But that is absolutely wrong point of view. It is a mistake to think like that. If you just sit at home and wait for riches after initiation, it will be very difficult for you to achieve any desired goals. Because when we receive some blessings during initiation, we receive the siddhi of wealth, but after initiation we have to put this initiation into practice, i.e. in our deeds. We have to concentrate exactly on deeds. We have to do something. And especially we should focus on giving. We should focus on practicing generosity, giving, towards other people. To what extent we can do that depends, of course, on our ability. But helping others, especially the needy, the poor people who are in need, who have no money, that is the most important point. Then the blessing we received during initiation will be realized in our deeds.
And here, of course, we are talking about karma. What is karma? It doesn’t depend on how spiritual or religious you are. That is, there is no such thing that, let’s say, if you are a Buddhist, karma works for you. And if you are not a Buddhist but an atheist, it doesn’t work. There is no such thing. Karma applies to everyone who lives in samsara. Karma is the basic law of samsara. That is, what we do will boomerang back to us sooner or later. It is a matter of time, but it will come back, it will definitely come back. All our actions, all our deeds will come back to us. Good, bad and so on. It’s all the law of boomerang, so to speak. That is, everything comes back, it’s just a matter of time. And so, after receiving this initiation, we should focus on practicing giving. That’s the way it works. And then the blessings of Dzambhala that you will receive today will become real to you. Many people don’t understand this point. They don’t understand it correctly. They think that if you have received initiation, everything should fall to you from the sky. All wealth, all prosperity and so on. But it doesn’t. That is a wrong point of view. After receiving initiation, we should immediately focus on action. And then the blessings that we received during initiation will become a reality for us.
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