Out of the state of emptiness

After you’ve received empowerment into the practice of a particular awareness-being or yidam, the form of this awareness-being will spontaneously arise out of the state of emptiness when you engage in practice.  Your experience of emptiness is the oven where the bread of vision bakes itself. 

p116, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4 

The practice of yidam

The word 'yidam' can be translated as 'awareness-being' or 'meditational deity'.   To arise as the awareness-being, is to wear the body of visions.  The form of the yidam gives us the opportunity to enter the world of form as the yidam.  This is what is called living the view.  Living the view means that we retain the feeling that we are the yidam in whatever we do.  We experience the world around us as the realised dimension of the yidam.   

p96-97, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4 

A superbly complete portrait

The form of the yidam is essentially instructive.  Through assuming this form, we learn to experience ourselves as possessing limitless capacities.  The limitless nature of our capacities is described by the many different forms in which yidam can be practised.  Each form is a particular avenue of approach to the experience of enlightenment.  Every image is a complete portrait of the enlightened state.

p97-98, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4 

Prejudice

Because devotion to the form of the yidam is crucial to Vajrayana, there can be no negative aesthetic considerations.  People cannot be practitioners of Vajrayana if they have prejudice against style of human manifestation. 

p108, Tracts of the Sun : An Earth Orbit of Vajrayana Expressions.  Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2022, ISBN 978-1-898185-28-4 

Self-secret buddhas

 

   Vajrayana begins with the premise that dualism is a state of prejudice against non-duality. On the basis of this prejudice against non-duality, infinite forms of prejudice will manifest in order to obfuscate non-duality.

Beings may exist in a state of dualistic distortion, but that which is distorted is a distorted version of non-duality. Because of this, it is possible to employ the energy of duality to transform “what seems to be” into “what actually is”.

Beings are self-secret buddhas and the powerful methodology of Vajrayana enables the realization of this through the empty form of the yidam. From the perspective of the visionary practices of Vajrayana, it is possible to transform every aspect of prejudice against otherness—of every possible description.

Ngak'chang Rinpoche and Khandro Déchen in Global BuddhistDoor Magazine  posted on the  Drala Jong Facebook page 20th March 2020  

The principle and function of mantra practice

The principle of mantra practice is transformation.  Mantra is the form quality of emptiness, and the visualisation is the emptiness quality of form. Within Tantra the two are united as a means of transforming our dimension of being into that of the yidam.
Mantra functions through repetition in terms of overwhelming the conceptual sphere – we become entirely engrossed with the quality sphere of the yidam in terms of light and sound.
There is no room for ‘me’ there. I have to let go of the ‘me project’. As soon as I let go of the ‘me project’, the yidam irradiates my experience with referenceless enjoyment in which there are no compulsory projects.  One becomes the yidam and both sees and hears the world as the yidam.

Aro Encyclopaedia  Index: Dzogchen and Tantra: question and answer session.  Ngak'chang Rinpoche and Khandro Déchen

Emptiness is the oven where the bread of vision bakes itself

  After you've received empowerment into the practice of a particular awareness-being, or yidam, the form of this awareness-being will spontaneously arise out of the state of emptiness when you engage in practice.  The form of the awareness-being will also arise in your dreams – maybe even in the steam that arises from your cup of coffee.  It depends on the intensity of your devotion.  There is no process – it simply happens because you have the key; and the key is the Tantric text or the awareness-spell which is sung to instigate this arising.  Your experience of emptiness is the oven where the bread of your vision bakes itself.  The empty state is the perfect environment for endless vision to arise.
p116, Wearing the Body of Visions, Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books, 1995, ISBN 1-898185-03-4

Mantra

"Mantra is the sense of terminal intimacy with the sound – through which one's capacities become ‘self apparent’. Mantra is a ‘carrier wave’ on which the unique frequency of the yidam travels. By reciting mantra, one tunes oneself to the ‘frequency’ of the yidam."

The Bristol Talks, Ngak'chang Rinpoche, Aro Encyclopaedia