I • Preliminaries

A • Arousing the Awakening Mind

First, in the section for arousing the mind of awakening, you determine that you will practice Object Severance Mahāmudrā because you, by yourself, must establish in the state of the Great Mother, dharmakāya, all mother and father sentient beings that fill the reaches of space. Those beings are primarily represented by

• hateful enemies that have physical form;

• harmful obstructors that are without form;

• interfering conditions that are those who pervert your intentions;

• karmic spirits that are the four devils arising due to coemergent ignorance;

• the devil of death, which robs you of life force;

• the spirits of place, which are gods and demons that live in those sites and haunted grounds [where you practice];

• the body spirits, which are the embodiments of the three poisons in equal measure that have been with you since the formation of this body from the confluence of sperm, egg, and vital winds.

Thinking along those lines counts as the awakening mind and should be upheld throughout the practice from beginning to end.

B • Going for Refuge

First summon the guests. While striking the open end of the thighbone [on the palm of your hand] three times, say, “fear not,” “be not afraid,” “verily be not afraid.” Then when blowing it three times, say, “listen” after the first blow, “gather here” with the second, and “gather quickly” with the third. Meditate that the sounds and words are heard from the peak of existence down to the deepest hell of incessant torment, and [the invited guests] gather densely like mists shrouding the great mountains.

On this occasion, the objects of refuge are visualized in the concise style. The Great Mother sits upon a lion throne and lotus-moon seat in the space in front of you. She is golden with four arms; her first two hands rest in an equipoise earth-touching gesture2. The lower right hand holds a vajra and the left a volume of scripture. She is adorned by ornaments of saṃbhogakāya and surrounded by an entourage of all the victors and their heirs. In front of them, all sentient beings — predominantly the hateful enemies, harmful obstructors, and so forth — stand with their hands folded in respect, devotedly uttering the refuge formula with their speech, and with their minds in a state of one-pointed faith and devotion. Imagine them going for refuge, saying, “From now until I reach awakening, I place my complete trust and surrender in you. You know whatever I do.” Repeat the refuge formula and so forth three times.

Continue with the aspiration prayer for virtue, offering the five branches, and taking the vows of awakening mind. For the [latter], inspired by their previous promises and in the manner of learning from them, earnestly think, “The victorious ones of the past all gave rise to the heart of awakening and trained in the three kinds of ethical discipline. Similarly, I too shall arouse the awakening mind and train in the trainings.”

C • Visualizing the Field of Accumulation and Gathering the Accumulations

In this case, meditate on the middle-length version of the five-tiered objects of refuge. Meditate that the syllable trāṃ appears in the space in front and becomes a palatial jeweled [throne]. In its center is the lotus from paṃ, the sun from ma, and the moon from a. On that four-layered seat, the white syllable hūṃ dissolves into light and becomes Machik. Pa Dampa is on a lotus-moon seat to her right at the level of her ear. The Five Deities of Vārāhī are on a lotus-sun-corpse seat to her left at the level of her ear. Shākyamuni is above Machik’s head. The buddhas are to his right, the holy Dharma in back of him, and the sangha to his left. Vairochana is above his head, with the buddhas of the four families in the four directions around him. In front of them is Green Tārā and in back is Vairochana Immense Ocean3. This is the Zurmang tradition. In the oral tradition of the previous great omniscient lords, you meditate on the Great Mother in place of Vairochana.

They are all seated on lotus-moon seats on lion thrones, surrounded by their respective retinues of the father lineage, mother lineage, nondual lineage, and so on. The heroes and heroines are all around them, with the dharma protectors of male and female tantras in the spaces between. Below Machik’s seat are the protector guests of qualities, such as the seventy[-five] glorious lords of the pure abodes4 and the worldly protectors; the guests of debt and liability of the obstructing type, such as the eight classes of gods and spirits, and the holders of debt and blood grudges; and the guests of compassion, the six classes of beings, such as gods and demigods. Meditate on them showing great respect in body, speech, and mind. Then meditate that light radiates from the three seed syllables in the three places of all the deities and instantly invokes the guests, who each dissolve into their [visualized forms], while you recite, “I and all sentient beings emanate as many bodies as there are atoms in the realm and pay homage…”. Thus offer the seven branches as usual, connecting the liturgy with the meditation.

D • Purifying the Obscurations with a Stream of Timeless Awareness

In Machik’s heart is a white hūṃ on a lotus and moon. The string of letters of the gate mantra5 is situated around it, starting from in front with the letters facing inward. Light radiates from it and strikes all those in the field of accumulation, inducing their compassionate blessings in the form of a stream, which dissolves back into the mantra string. A stream of light rays and white elixir falls from it. It fills Machik’s body and pours out of her left big toe, flowing into the top of your head and that of all sentient beings. It washes away sins, obscurations, faults, and downfalls accumulated since beginningless cyclic existence, as well as all current sickness, bad spirits, and obstacles. Think that the washing water in the form of liquid soot or coal sludge emerges from your bodies through the pores and lower orifices and dissolves into the mighty golden ground.

When pressuring a major spirit with a wrathful visualization, meditate on the lord of life and death with the head of a makara and gaping jaws right below you. The washing water changes into a substance with abundant color, smell, taste, ability, and power and disappears into his mouth, satisfying him. Debts are canceled and death is cheated. The mind of awakening is aroused in him and he disappears under the golden ground. This is known as the Black Poison Distribution (ha la nag ’gyed).

E • Presenting Offerings

The whole extent of form appearing in the universe is appearance-emptiness; the action seal of Body (karmamudrā). The extent of sound resounding is sound-emptiness, the dharma seal of Speech (dharmamudrā). All mental thoughts and memories are awareness-emptiness, the great seal of Mind (mahāmudrā). All happiness and suffering are the seal of auspicious signs. That is how it has always been.

Maintain awareness of that and offer symbolically to all those in the field of accumulation by visualizing many goddesses emanating from the three places of your bright, crystal-like body — white goddesses of form carrying mirrors, red goddesses of sound carrying lutes, blue goddesses of mind carrying phenomena sources, and goddesses of indefinite colors carrying the seals of the five desirables and auspicious signs — and make the offerings. Imagine that the recipients are extremely delighted and satisfied. Afterward, rest in the equipoise of the total purity of the three spheres [of agent, act, and recipient].

Dedicate your happiness and virtue to all sentient beings throughout space, and take upon yourself alone their negativities, obscurations, and sufferings. When this visualization of giving and taking (gtong len) is done sincerely, it becomes an excellent offering that pleases the four guests, and the supreme accumulation of merit. Through these methods, you accomplish the process of accumulation and purification that accords with the approach of the Common Vehicle.

2. The text here (and in all copies) says sa gnon mnyam bzhags, which would appear to mean “earth-touching [and] equipoise [mudras].” Generally, all depictions of the Great Mother show her two hands either in equipoise mudra or dharma-teaching mudra. However, several of the other texts in this collection also describe this unusual position, so apparently it was once an alternative that never made it into the tangka iconography.

3. Immense Ocean (Gangs chen mtsho) is an epithet for Vairochana and refers to the Buddhist cosmological presentation of existence as issuing forth from the scented water that flows from the bodies of these buddhas, manifesting the pure realms and all universes.

4. One version consists of ten guardians of the directions (phyogs skyong cu), eight great gods (lha chen po brgyad), eight great nāgas (glu chen po brgyad), eight great planets (gza’ chen po brgyad), four worldly guardians (’jig rten skyong ba bzhi), twenty-eight constellations (rgyu skar gnyis shu tsa brgyad), and nine great bhairavas’jigs byed chen po dgu).

5. The mantra of the prajñāpāramitā sutras: tadyathā oṃ gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā.