General Purpose of Empowerment
by His Holiness Living Buddha Lian Sheng
This teaching was given at
After talking about the inner purposes of empowerment the last time, we shall talk about the general purpose of empowerment today.
The first empowerment one receives from one's guru after taking refuge is known as affinity empowerment. The second empowerment one receives from one's guru is known as Learning Dharma empowerment. The third empowerment is known as understanding Dharma empowerment.
And the last empowerment is known as teaching Dharma empowerment, which is also known as guru or acarya empowerment - to show that the recipient has the necessary qualifications to teach others the Buddhadharma.
This is the sequence of empowerment as far as the purpose of the empowerment is concerned.
We have to receive four levels of empowerment in learning True Buddha Tantra, namely outer Tantra, inner Tantra, Unsurpassed Tantra and Great perfection. The last empowerment is considered the highest level of empowerment one can receive.
Other Tantrayana school may adopt a different name such as action Tantra, performance Tantra, Yoga Tantra and Highest Yoga Tantra. But they are essentially the same. Apart from what I have just mentioned, there are many personal deity empowerments that we must receive from that particular deity before we can cultivate his personal deity yoga.
Five types of implements are used in the empowerment ceremony, namely bell, Vajra, treasure Vajra, treasure crown and name. During personal deity empowerment, the personal deity's picture/image such as those of Amitabha Buddha or Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva may be used as an implement to carry out the necessary empowerment.
Empowerment has many purposes; there are many types of empowerment in Tantrayana.
They are not as simple as they look. When a Vajra guru is performing an empowerment ritual, he has to put in his heart and soul into it to ensure that it achieves its end, although outwardly he may appear to be doing nothing outwardly.
As we only saw the guru taking an implement to touch the head of a recipient, the empowerment may appear to be very simple. If that is so, then after the Dharma talk, the father can empower his son; the elder can empower his younger siblings. Unless the person performing the empowerment can summon the wisdom personal deity to grace the occasion, the empowerment can never be effective!
In
Distance is not a barrier. For instance, if you are in
During a remote empowerment ritual, the recipient is required to face the rising sun in the morning and chant "Namo Guru peh, Namo Buddha Ya, Namo Dharma Ya, Namo sangah Ya."
In one particular instance, one of them felt tired and went back to bed. In his sleep he saw a Daikini appearing in the space and spraying some holy water on him.
A disciple who has all kinds of sickness reported that after receiving remote empowerment, he was able to jump out from his bed as if he were just thirty years old, although he was actually more than seventy.
Many disciples reported that they saw auspicious signs of empowerment after the rituals.
One of them after carrying out the refuge rites and on the way to his office felt that someone had sprayed some water on him. It was a sunny day and the bus was not leaking. He felt the coolness of the water and even saw the water drops on his clothes. These are some auspicious signs of effective empowerment as Daikini has sprayed water on them from the space.
The sole purpose of empowerment is transmission of Dharma stream.
If we cultivate daily in our sacred shrine, we should have experienced some authentic feelings, otherwise our cultivation effort needs much to be desired. During each and every session of our cultivation, our personal deity should come to grace the occasion, empower and energize us. In other words, in every session of our cultivation, our personal deity, guru, Daikini and Dharma protector will empower us.
Tantrayana had it that: "The Dharma stream from empowerment never ceases!" This is because we can receive empowerment during our daily cultivation. As a result, our unwholesome karma will reduce and our wholesome karma will grow. Hence it is important that we cultivate daily.
Empowerment is definitely not just a normal ceremony; we must cultivate hard so that Dharma stream can keep empowering us. It would be better if we can manage to have a psychic response with our personal deity, as we will be able to carry out a powerful and effective empowerment on others.
That is all for today.
Tantric Empowerment (1)
by His Holiness Living Buddha Lian Sheng
Today I shall talk about Tantric empowerment - an important ceremony in Tantra teachings. In order to cultivate Tantrayana, there must be a ceremony before we begin. The grand and holy ceremony includes among other things, "taking refuge" and "receive empowerment". It serves the following purposes :
1.Purification - Once a disciple receives empowerment from a Vajra guru, he will turn over a new leaf, as all his past unwholesome karma are deemed to have been eradicated.
2.Energization - A Vajra guru can use his Dharma power derived from actual cultivation to energize his disciples. In other words, the Dharma stream from the cosmos consciousness and the Dharma power from the Vajra guru can be injected into the disciple's body. It's just like Chinese Gong-fu fighting novel, when one skillful master transfers his power accumulated over his life to his disciple so that he will have the strength equivalent to 500 years of cultivation. The higher the power the guru has, the higher the strength he can transfer.
3.Certification - Normally Sutra cultivation progresses from "cause to fruition". Tantric cultivation is different; it progresses from "fruition to cause". As ordinary people, we cultivate and eventually become saints. This progress is "cause to fruition" - (from means to end). Tantric cultivation of "fruition to cause" does not mean we degrade from saints to ordinary people. It means after empowerment, it is certified that we have received the spiritual fruits. Just like Dipamkara Buddha (the twenty -fourth predecessor of Sakyamuni) who certified and foretold that Sakyamuni would be enlightened in due course and be known as "Sakyamuni Buddha" in the past. After the certification, although we are known as Buddhas, we must still continue our cultivation so that our spiritual fruits will ripen in future.
4.Authorization - We are given the permission to cultivate the Tantric Dharma after the empowerment. Without empowerment, it is illicit to cultivate the profound Tantra. Therefore we must take refuge and receive empowerment.
Why must we take refuge?
Tantrayana values lineage. Without empowerment, there is no lineage to talk about. Moreover we must always invoke personal deity and root guru to empower us in our Tantric cultivation. If we do not take refuge, how can this be done? By taking refuge in our guru, we can receive oral instructions from our guru, we can invite our personal deity to sit on our crown, and finally we can ask all the past patriarchs to bless us.
The significance in empowerment can be described as "implant the consciousness of Buddha and his seed into the cultivator's body". It is a serious matter. It is no just a superficial ritual. A true Guru who has Dharma power will be able to transplant the seed of personal deity in the cultivator's body - Alaya Vijnana storehouse to be exact. In future, the seed will spout, strike root, grow to become a real cultivation implement, and eventually blossom into the personal deity.
Empowerment is the union of cosmos consciousness, guru and disciple.
If the empowerment is powerful, an auspicious sign will be shown - unlike those who take refuge in Sutrayana, they will never experience anything. The disciples will feel power and energy flowing into their bodies. And they will feel strong. Just like the cartoon character Popeye the sailor man. After taking a can of spinach, he becomes very powerful. The auspicious sign of empowerment is like the spinach taken by Popeye.
Tantrayana always mentions about Dharma power. If we are lucky to have received empowerment from a genuine Vajra guru, our strength will increase immediately. The is the main purpose of receiving empowerment.
That is all for today.
Intrinsic Meanings of Empowerment
by His Holiness Living Buddha Lian Sheng
This teaching was given at
Today I shall talk about the intrinsic meanings of empowerment. Many people have mistakenly thought that Tantric empowerment is just like a normal ceremony for those seeking refuge in Buddhism. The truth is it has many intrinsic meanings.
Before a Vajra guru can carry out an empowerment, he must cultivate the Dharma of personal deity in charge of the ceremony first. He must also use his will power to invoke the personal deity from the space to enter his body and finally he must also visualize morphing into his personal deity.
If the empowerment implement is a vase, the guru must also visualize the personal deity enter and fill the vase with nectar flowing from his pores before he can use the vase to empower his disciples.
This is the preparatory work done by the guru.
As for the disciples, they must know what kind of empowerment they will be receiving. They must know how to chant the personal deity's Mantra and form the correct Mudra. They must also know how to visualize the personal deity sitting on their heads. The empowerment will be meaningless and does not achieve its purposes if the recipients do not prepare themselves well.
In short, the guru must invoke the personal deity, and morph into the personal deity.
And the recipients must know how to chant Mantra, form Mudra and carry out the necessary visualization.
Many of my disciples have asked me to empower them. When I asked them to chant the Mantra and form the Mudra for the specific empowerment, I was surprised that they did not know. This was clearly against the Tantrayana tradition. Let me give you an example, if you want to cultivate Wei Guang Ru Yi Yoga, you must know how to form its related Mudra. Let me remind all of you, if you want to receive empowerment, you must seek advice as to the way to chant the Mantra, form the Mudra and do the visualization. Empowerment is not a casual affair; we must prepare ourselves fully.
Some disciples were so ambitious that they asked for ten types of empowerment at one go. I asked them: " How do you invoke all the ten wisdom personal deities at the same time?"
For me, this is not a problem. I can pray to all the Buddha King, Deity King and Earth King and ask them to support and protect me. I can ask Thousand-arm Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva to become my body shrine (Mandala) - in short my invocation will be effective.
But the disciples who asked for all sorts of empowerment must know every aspect of the personal deities involved including their Mantras and Mudras. Failing which, my empowerment will not be useful. These are the intrinsic meanings of empowerment.
During an empowerment session, the recipient, the guru and the implement must embody into one. Otherwise, no auspicious signs of empowerment will be forthcoming.
After empowerment rituals, many of my disciples have seen auspicious signs indicating to them that their unwholesome karmas have been eliminated.
In one of the mass empowerment I did previously, many miracles were reported later on:
Someone's brain tumor just disappeared.
Someone recovered from perennial sickness without any medication. (He saw black karma flying out from his body, and nectar and Dharma stream flying into his body).
Someone took an X-ray and found the stones in his bladders disappeared mysteriously.
Someone no longer suffered from backache.
These are all auspicious signs of an effective empowerment.
Sometimes after receiving empowerment, the recipients may have strange dreams.
A disciple dreamed that Buddha/ Bodhisattva radiated light to empower him. Some lucky ones even dreamed that they were accompanied by the divine beings to fly around the various heavens.
Some of them saw themselves eating some white stuff and vomiting black stuff - a sign of purging their karmic hindrance.
Some one dreamed that many worms crawled out from his head and fell to the ground when he was combing his hair. After this strange dream, his life-long headache just disappeared without a trace.
These are further examples of an effective empowerment.
We must know that after receiving empowerment, we can have authentic experiences. Tantric empowerment is used to represent receiving empowerment from the Dharma power.
When white Dharma power penetrates into our body, all our unwholesome karma will be eradicated. This is the main difference between empowerment and initiation ceremony.
Using the white Dharma stream to eradicate our unwholesome karma is the main purpose of receiving any kind of empowerment. That is all for today.
