Essence of Vajrayana. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso
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very centre of the lotus, standing on a sun mandala, we appear as the Blessed One Heruka, with a dark-blue body and four faces. We contemplate as follows:
My principal face is dark blue, the left face green, the back face red, and the right face yellow. Each face has three eyes and a rosary of five-pronged vajras on its forehead. My right leg is outstretched and treads on the head of black Bhairawa, who has four hands. His first two hands are pressed together, the second right hand holds a damaru, and the second left a sword. My bent left leg treads on the breast of red Kalarati, who has four hands. Her first two hands are pressed together, and the other two hold a skullcup and a khatanga. Both the beings beneath my feet have one face and three eyes, and are adorned with five mudras.
I have twelve arms. The first two embrace Vajravarahi, with my right hand holding a five-pronged vajra and my left hand a bell. The next two hands hold a bloody, white elephant skin stretched across my back; my right hand holds the left foreleg, and my left the left hind leg. Both these hands are in the threatening mudra with the tips of the outstretched fingers at the level of my eyebrows. My third right hand holds a damaru, the fourth an axe, the fifth a curved knife, and the sixth an upright three-pointed spear. My third left hand holds a khatanga marked with a vajra, the fourth a skullcup brimming with blood, the fifth a vajra noose, and the sixth a four-faced head of Brahma.
My hair is tied up in a topknot marked with a small crossed vajra of various colours. Each head is adorned with a crown of five human skulls strung together top and bottom with a rosary of black vajras. On the left side of my crown is a half moon, slightly tilted. My facial expressions change, and my four sets of four fangs are bared and terrifying. I display nine moods. The three physical moods of majesty, heroism and menace are expressed by my body maintaining an air of majesty, my feet treading on Bhairawa and Kalarati, and the frown at the centre of my brow. The three verbal moods of laughter, wrath and ferocity are expressed by the slight smile on my lips, my bared fangs, and my tongue curled back. The three mental moods of compassion, attentiveness and serenity are expressed by my long almond-shaped eyes, my wide-open eyes, and my looking at the Mother from the corner of my eyes.
I wear a lower garment of a tiger skin, and a long necklace of fifty shrunken moist human heads strung together with human entrails. I am adorned with six bone ornaments: a crown ornament, ear ornaments, a necklace, bracelets and anklets, a heart ornament, and ashes of human bone smeared over my entire body. My hair is woven through the eight spokes of the crown ornament and gathered into a topknot, which is surmounted by a a nine-faceted jewel. The necklace, bracelets and anklets are made of fragments of human bone embossed with vajras. I wear my heart ornament, the seraka, just below my Brahmin’s thread, a three-knotted string hanging over my left shoulder. The front and back of the seraka consist of bone squares embossed with vajras, which are connected by strings of bone that go over the shoulders and under the arms.
The Father is embracing the Blessed Mother Vajravarahi, who has a red-coloured body, one face, two hands and three eyes. She is naked with freely hanging hair and wears a lower garment made from fragments of skull. Her left hand, embracing the Father’s neck, holds a skullcup brimming with the blood of the four maras. Her right hand in the threatening mudra brandishes a curved knife, opposing the malignant forces of the ten directions. Her body shines with a brilliance like that of the fire at the end of the aeon. Her two legs are clasped around the Father’s thighs. She is the nature of blissful great compassion. Adorned with five mudras, she wears a crown of five shrunken human skulls and a necklace of fifty shrunken human skulls. Father and Mother abide in the centre of a fiercely blazing fire of exalted wisdom.
THE SYMBOLISM OF HERUKA’S BODY
Heruka’s body, a manifestation of his omniscient wisdom, reveals all the phenomena of the basis that we need to abandon, the path that we need to practise, and the result that we need to accomplish. The dark-blue colour of his body symbolizes the Wisdom Truth Body, the head of Brahma the Nature Body, the skulls the Enjoyment Body, and the crossed vajra of various colours the Emanation Body. Thus, these features of Heruka’s body teach the phenomena of the result, showing that Heruka has attained the four bodies of a Buddha and that we should strive to do the same. For this we need to abandon all objects to be abandoned, the phenomena of the basis, and practise all the stages of the path to enlightenment, the phenomena of the path.
Heruka’s twelve arms teach us to abandon the cycle of twelve dependent-related links, samsara; the elephant skin to abandon the ignorance of self-grasping; and the lower garment of a tiger skin to abandon hatred. The axe teaches us to abandon all faults of body, speech and mind; the curved knife to abandon conceptions grasping at extremes; and the three-pointed spear to abandon all imprints of the delusions of the three realms. The long necklace of fifty human heads teaches us to abandon ordinary appearances and conceptions by purifying the fifty inner winds; and the bared fangs teach us to overcome the four maras. Heruka’s changing facial expressions teach us to turn away from wrong views and adopt correct views; and his treading on Bhairawa and Kalarati teaches us to abandon the two extremes of existence and non-existence, and the two extremes of samsara and solitary peace. Encouraging us to abandon the extreme of solitary peace implicitly teaches us to attain great compassion and practise the stages of the Mahayana path. Indeed, Heruka himself is the embodiment of Buddha’s compassion. His six mudra-ornaments teach us to train in the six perfections, and his four faces teach us to realize emptiness by meditating on the four doors of perfect liberation – emptiness, signlessness, wishlessness and non-production. Emptiness, in this context, refers to the emptiness of the nature of all functioning things, signlessness to the emptiness of their causes, wishlessness to the emptiness of their effects, and non-production to the emptiness of all non-produced phenomena.
It is not enough simply to realize emptiness; we need to realize emptiness with a mind of spontaneous great bliss. This is symbolized by the skullcup brimming with blood. The blood symbolizes great bliss and the skullcup emptiness; together they symbolize the union of the two. The half moon on the left side of Heruka’s crown symbolizes the white bodhichitta in the crown melting and descending through the central channel, giving rise to the experience of the great bliss of the four joys. The ashes smeared all over his body symbolize this bliss pervading his entire body. To complete our training in great bliss, we need to meditate with a consort, first with a visualized wisdom mudra and then with an actual action mudra; and this is symbolized by Heruka embracing Vajravarahi. Buddha’s omniscient mind is the indivisible union of bliss and emptiness – his bliss appears as Heruka and his wisdom of emptiness as Vajravarahi. Heruka and Vajravarahi, therefore, are the same nature, and not two different people. Heruka holds a vajra symbolizing method and a bell symbolizing wisdom; together these teach us that we need to accomplish the union of method and wisdom.
In general, attachment is the source of our daily problems and thus an object to be abandoned, but in Highest Yoga Tantra, instead of abandoning it straightaway we transform it through the power of meditation. Therefore, Heruka wears an elephant skin teaching us to abandon ignorance and a tiger skin teaching us to abandon hatred, but there is nothing on his body teaching us to abandon attachment. We need some slight attachment in order to develop great bliss. When we develop bliss we mix this bliss with emptiness and use this mind to abandon all delusions, including attachment. If with a pure motivation we train sincerely in Highest Yoga Tantra, the power of our meditation will be stronger than the power of our attachment, and so even though we do not abandon attachment right away, it will have no power to cause us problems.
We all have the seed of Herukahood, but without receiving the blessings of the Buddhas we will not be able to ripen this seed. The sound of the damaru invokes all the Buddhas so that we can receive their blessings. The damaru itself symbolizes the blazing of the inner fire, and is played at the level of the navel; whereas the bell symbolizes clear light, and is played at the level of the heart.
The vajra noose teaches us that our mind should always be bound by bliss, and the khatanga teaches us to recognize that the ultimate bodhichitta of inseparable bliss and emptiness appears as Heruka’s mandala and Deities. Whenever we practise Heruka generation stage meditation, we should always remember that everything is the nature of bliss and emptiness. In this way our meditation becomes an actual antidote to self-grasping.
Heruka’s hair tied up in a topknot teaches us that the realizations of generation stage