00:00:00 Who and what is Dakini including the play of the outer, inner and secret aspects
00:07:25 – Directly experiencing these sky goers.
00:13:40 Five elements and five dakinis and how they support each other.
00:17:42 On the charnel ground as the home of the Dakini.
00:27:00 Working with difficult times with the help of the Dakini.
00:29:00 Three confidence that tantric practitioners need to have.
00:31:00 The subtle body and working with energy/
00:37:00. Experience the non duality of the sacred and ordinary and paradox through Dakini.
00:48:00 Upcoming Vajrayogini Empowerment and Dakini Path of Vajrayogini
00:55:00 Final Thoughts
LINKS
Previous Episode with Choying Khandro on the Broken Heart of Possibility
– Vajrayogini Empowerment and Retreat –
– Dakini Path: A Contemporary Pilgrimage to Vajrayogini –
Khandro’s book
https://www.amazon.com/DAKINI-JOURNEY-CONTEMPORARY-WORLD-HEART/dp/B0C5241RX2/
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Transcript (please excuse all errors)
Olivia Clementine: I’m Olivia Clementine, and this is Love and Liberation. Today our guest is Chöying Khandro. Chöying holds the complete transmissions of two lineages, the Ganden Ensa Ear-Whispered Lineage and the Machik Dakini Ear Whispered Lineage from her teacher, the late Ninth Khalkha Jetsün Dampa. She brings more than three decades of intense study and practice to her teachings and has completed a number of personal retreats.
Including the traditional 108 springs retreat in the Mongolian wilderness and a three and a half year solitary retreat in the forests of Oregon. She has degrees in Oriental philosophy and in Buddhist studies. Chöying Khandro is the spiritual director of the Dakini’s Whisper, a community for the Machik Dakini Ear Whispered lineage.
Her interest centers on bringing ancient timeless wisdom to our direct experience in the modern world.
Well, Khandro-la, thank you so much for for meeting and I’m so delighted that we’re going to speak about your book.
I’m not quite sure where the recording will begin. So want to thank you again, Khandro la, for your, for being here. You have a new book that just landed this year called Dakini Journey in the Contemporary World. The heart of Cho volume two, and so we’ll be really delving into this today, which I’m very much looking forward to.
We’ll be speaking about Dakini this entire time so often the term is misunderstood so can you offer some illumination on on who and what is Dakini. We’ll start there.
Chöying Khandro: Oh my gosh. First of all, thank you so much, Olivia, having me again.
Your questions are important ones and fully explored in this book. You can say I spend 400 pages. Answering questions of this nature, first of all, I want to say. So it’s very hard to define dakini as you know. Dakini is an expression of Buddha nature. That is who and what you are. So ultimately, the nature of dakini is beyond gender.
Characteristics? Any elaborations? or concept. She’s like a boundless, cloudless sky. That’s the ultimate nature of Dakini. Relatively, Dakini expresses herself in many physical forms. Not necessarily in a female form, sometimes as your teacher in a male form, as well as in a female form. You may meet her in a vision, or in a physical world, in a dream.
So in my book, in the chapter three, called Meeting multidimensionality.
In that chapter, I also refer to the relationship between the outer, inner, and the secret Dakini. A little bit technical terms, all these terms are. But as all in one, one in all. These are the three dimensions of Dakini. If one dimension is realized, all are realized, you can say. Yes, so this is three dimensions.
In a nutshell, if dakini appears in a physical form, she’s called the outer dakini. If she appears in a dream, a vision, or in a subtle body, she’s called the inner dakini. And if the subtlest dimension of her is unveiled or revealed or realized, she’s called a secret dakinis. We can say lots more about that.
The purpose of the Dakin practice is to unveil the sast dimension of Dakin. The sast mind. Again, this could be a technical term, ecstatic or innate, ate great breeze that realizes emptiness. In other words, a sades mind. So in order for that mind to do or unbel, we do a practice.
Dakini practice. Specifically this practice is called mixing, mixing, or merging, or mixing the three messenger Dakinis. So first we invite the outer Dakini and mix her with the inner Dakini in your subtle body. As a result, the sacred Dakini dawns in your experience. As a realization of great bliss, I was talking about great bliss inseparable from emptiness. By relying on this outer dakini, and meditating on inner dakini, we meet the secret dakini, right? Then it says that once we have met the secret dakini, we will attain full awakening with this body before death.
So the outer dakini is like our assistant. Inner dakinis are the actual method to be penetrated and the secret dakinis are the fruits of attainment. So this feels very conceptual at this point without bringing it into our own experience. the audience might be thinking, huh? So if you, you like, at the end of the interview, and I can do a short meditation for the audience to integrate what I’m talking about here, how these three dimensions of dakinis interface in a more experiential way, or we can do a short meditation called What’s my relationship to Dakini?
I always like to embody the meditation to bring the whatever we are talking about to our own direct experience.
So this question was a big one.
Olivia Clementine: Yeah, it’s a big one. How can we feel that we’re not speaking of something so distant and impossible.
As you said, how can we directly experience these sky goers who come to us from the Tibetan tradition?
Chöying Khandro: Oh my gosh, another enticing question. So one of the things I wanted to do in my book is to demystify dakini while understanding and honoring the ambiguity and mystical aspect of dakini.
So Dakin is everywhere in a sense. Not yet nowhere if we don’t recognize her. So then we examine how we can feel or experience Dakini at this moment. In this world, for example, you and me right now, how can we examine, how can we feel or experience darkness at this moment?
And consider that each individual Like you and me can meet Dakini by having a direct experiences of her through various, you can say, doors, or modalities, or such as sense doors. We have five sense doors, sense doors, and consciousness, and a subtle body each of us have, and the five element. which each of us consists of.
So those things are explored in here, how we can access to dakinis as an individual, just a normal person. How can we directly experience these sky goals?
So, to answer this question, I’d like to read a few paragraphs from my book, if you don’t mind. That okay?
Olivia Clementine: Yes, yes, it’s okay.
Chöying Khandro: “So, the answer may be deceptively simple. They are already within us. Their hidden quality is there to be unveiled by us. Dakini is always pointing this out to us, if we open our eyes to the moon itself, instead of the finger that is pointing to the moon.
It is through our practice and direct experience. That we recognize, uncover evoke and become her. This, the dakini journey is an invitation from her and to her and wake up to the dakini between, by encountering the dakini face-to-face, we will discover a shocking fact. She’s our own mind. She’s nothing other than that.
With our deep longing for her, in fact, we may find that she has always been with us in every circumstance. She expresses herself through us while she’s never found anywhere. See if you… This will be your direct experience. See if this koan will open you up and unveiling the dakinis own face to you.”
I love this one vajrayogini practitioner, named , – his poem,
he said, “Despite the endless search for you, noble lady, I found no certainty of your true existence.” So he searched, wandered everywhere, longing to meet her, meet the divine Dakini. With this deep yearning to meet her, he practiced his entire life.
Then he said, “But, at last, my mind’s youth, weary of it’s fantasies found relief in the forest hut of the ineffable.”
Through his sincere, single pointed practice, he finally reached her. He came to realize her true nature, indivisible bliss and emptiness. The great master of Dakini – touched her and became one with her. Even as or because he found no certainty in her existence. When we realize we cannot find her at all, we find her.
Perhaps in this search for Dakini, there is really no goal or destination. Only the ever fresh, unfolding journey of now, from moment to surprising moment.
Still we can look for the dakini. We can pray with her and we can talk about her.
Empty yet appear. So we can talk more about that paradox, you know, Dakini as an expression of paradox and pointing us to that direction.
Olivia Clementine: These elements that are personified as the five Dakinis help us see our wisdom essence, like, why is it that doing these particular practices of the Dakinis as the five elements helps us have realization, like, what is the skillful means there?
Chöying Khandro: So, Five Dakini practice, – in Tibetan traditions I presented from the point of, or lens of the Five Elements.
So elemental approach makes the Five Dakini practices so experiential, embodied. integrative or accessible to us and effective. So I made a decision to present the Five Dakini practice, lineage practice we have in the Ear Whisperer lineage in this way. So first of all, Five Dakini, Dakinis, I actually, you are very familiar with Five Dakinis, no? Olivia?
Olivia Clementine: Yeah.
Chöying Khandro: So called five awareness wisdoms or because five, dakinis are awakened expression of our true nature and all the five wisdoms. So by relying to, or relating to, the five dakinis through practice, such as those in our lineage, five dakini practice, we can start to connect to each dakini, and how wisdom awareness, elemental aspect, and energy, so forth, etc. So, through our relationship with the dakini, we slowly begin to unveil our own five kinds of wisdom, and eventually embody each dakini. Then, we don’t stop there. Then we can perform awakened activities. Each Dakini embodies in the world to assist.
All beings. Yeah, so, five dakinis is the embodiment of each element. So that’s a big part of this presentation of this book, you know, Elemental Approach.
Everything is made of elements, you know. Everything is made of elements, and everything, internal, external. And then we started to realize, or recognize, there’s no Buddha in, who is inside, outside, so related.
So this elemental approach is nothing new in a sense that, like, Buddhism does not own the five elemental teachings. Yeah, way before Buddhism or the other tradition all these kind of elemental approaches. But somehow when Buddhism presents in relation to five families, then became a little more solidified, I felt.
So I just brought the five elemental aspect, more experiential aspect. So each of us can experience directly and embody the five dakinis in this way, other energies.
Olivia Clementine: So we’re creating the ground here in our conversation of some really fundamental aspects to Dakini and and another one is the charnel ground as the home of the Dakini. What is so significant of the charnel ground being the home where the Dakini abides?
Chöying Khandro: So let me start with a quote from the book. I think Channel Ground is significant. important component in the Dakini teachings. So Mandarava, she said, “a frightful environment such as this this is the catalyst for a practitioner’s true practice to emerge. Adverse conditions are the true wealth of a practitioner. A frightful or frightening, uncomfortable place is the knife that severed discursive thought.”
So, the charnel ground is a symbol of everything we reject, or that we don’t want to relate to, or approach. Disgusting, terrifying. and fear provoking, all our blind spots, escape mechanism, and the shadow are radically exposed. So going to the charnel ground and sitting there is completely contrary to our habitual patterns, right?
Opposite to our habitual patterns. So one of the aims of the tantric dakini practice is to recognize or subdue or vanquish the habitual patterns, ordinary way of looking at things. How we perceive, react to, and transform this ordinary habitual views or appearance into a sacred outlook. So the charnel ground is the place where that takes place.
Charnel ground is a home or abode. A sacred outlook, maybe not many people or some people may not be familiar with, is the ability to see the sacredness in everything that’s going on in whatever experience we have. Prefer, un prefer, ugly, or disgusting, and in whatever activity we do. So, in that sense, the charnel ground is a practice environment.
I call the Dojo training ground for tantric practitioners. So it is literally the home of the Dakini who can assist us in this radical transformation of realizing emptiness and seeing the way things actually exist. Dakini practitioners have to enter the charnel ground and then bring the charnel ground into our own experience. So the charnel ground is an important metaphor. In that dakini journey in our, on our journey.
Ground charnel ground is different from the cremation ground. Charnel ground is a place next to the cremation ground. Just the bodies abandoned. So fearful place. All the animals, vicious animals, come at night and very dangerous place. That’s the least place you want to go. Yeah, so, metaphor at the same time, originally it was literal.
As a modern contemporary practitioner, What’s that charnel ground feels like in our own experience?
Like an internal channel ground, you know, I was just talking about this blind spot or the place that scares us, or a place that we don’t want to go, we can inquire ourselves. Am I avoiding, you know, and then Dakini is the one who can guide us and cut through our own projections, habitual patterns, you know, all the confusion and the fear.
All these things need to be severed. She carries a chopped knife, or carved knife to chop our concept.
Olivia Clementine: One thing I, I feel grateful for the dakini Is her ability to help us during hard and uncertain times and how do we work with the hard and uncertain times as the path, like rather than, once it gets better then I’m going to practice or then there’s more possibility for my awakenment and the world to be a better place.
Will you speak about this. I feel like this is very important.
Chöying Khandro: Yeah, very important. So the, this hard and uncertain time, exactly when dakini appears. And help us transform the path into freedom and awakening. So Olivia, so this is the outcome. This book is the outcome over the last difficult time, couple years, we have faced difficult time, you know, pandemics and other environmental challenges we faced. Then I started to on Dakinis. So Dakini is a very timely, timely teaching, and this is the time Dakini appears and helps us. For example, Machik Labdron, you know, a female, 12th century Tibetan female yogini, Dakini. In this case, awakened Dakini. So Her Prayers tells us how to meet Dakini in these difficult times. I love these four lines when we chant all the time in Cho practice.
“Bless me that I turn negative conditions to the path. Bless me that adversities shine as aid. Bless me that I cut through the root of confusion. Bless me that I realize the unborn nature of my mind.” So I love this. Bless me that adversity shines as aids. So Dakini’s teaching, Dakini teaches all this radical teaching.
Olivia, would you like to say anything about this?
Olivia Clementine: No, I wanted to make sure you had nothing else you had to say.
Chöying Khandro: So how we can bring the dakini teaching into our difficult time?
Olivia Clementine: If we’re even referring to the charnel ground, it’s really seeing it as the place, like there’s actually no other place we’re meant to be. When things are hard, the resistance to the experience is what actually creates so much of the suffering itself. And It feels like what you’re sharing here to this invitation rather than aversion is, is the path and also ultimately to see its essence.
Chöying Khandro: So welcoming whatever arises and rest in the nature and see through the true nature of that difficult emotion, for example.
Yeah, this escaping mechanism, escape mechanism that won’t work. Actually, that’s the cause of suffering, as you said. Yeah, so Dakini gives us really courage. This Dakini practice helps us to build the ability to rest. In whatever arises, however difficult or unpreferred appearances or circumstances arises, yeah, give us a lot of hope and it’s difficult, never said easy, but it’s difficult, but it’s worthwhile.
And also this is the approach in, in, That’s what we cannot, it’s so difficult to change the circumstances, right? Those challenges are falling onto us, moment to moment. So then what, what we can do? It’s this, we’re transforming our own mind and yeah, facing challenges.
One of the main functions of Dakini is to watch over, to assist the practitioners. So always side of us and assist us and guide us and give us power. Mm. So that’s very encouraging and hopeful. So this, the dakini journey is a dakini journey with the kidney and also as dakini or toward the home of the dakini that is full and what we truly are you can say.
Olivia Clementine: We hear many stories of practitioners leaning on dakinis for guidance, like what you were just saying about the dakini as a protector and also as a guide. And in your book, you speak about this emotional and spiritual maturity that’s really needed to make connection with dakini Wisdom. Will you speak about emotional and spiritual maturity and, and also what, what blocks our maturity?
Chöying Khandro: Yeah, so one way to say it. There are many ways to talk about this maturity business, spiritual and human maturities. But one way to say it, it’s in, based on our tradition, you know, Lama Tsongkhapa, that’s in our tradition, talks about the three convictions of the three, or three confidence that tantric practitioners, I would say dakini practitioner, need to have.
on their journey. So the first one is a spontaneous heartfelt trust or confidence or conviction in dakini teaching. So that’s like when you hear dakini teaching or even the word dakini. Some hard kind of move or steered . So that’s sort of conviction or confidence or the trust, heartfelt trust like any practitioner has, that’s, you can say the one maturity.
Then the second conviction or face is the one that, who is presenting that or the who, who authentically holds the teaching. And they share them with the students. Like a Lama, or the teachers, so conviction or faith in the one who holds that Dakini teachings. And last but not least, you need to have conviction.
What do you think? Third one. Conviction in your own capacity to make this Dakini journey.
This is the most challenging. And most often missed. Lack of these three convictions. Blocks our speech maturity. That’s one way to say maybe if I answer to your question. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. So another words trust in our Buddha nature. Do we have? Yeah, that’s that challenging part as well, especially in the west.
We have a lot of baggage, so, but slowly, slowly, with the help of Dakini and our own practice, our confidence in our own capacity to make it, make this journey complete and built up.
Olivia Clementine: So the body and subtle body and working with energy is essential when you speak of the Dakini and the tantric path and you certainly teach a lot on this personally. Can you share what the subtle body is, and what is meant by energy in this context, and how we can find more relationship with these aspects of us?
Chöying Khandro: Subtle body. Right now, feeling your body. If you, Olivia, or audience, just take a moment to feel. The subtle body is a feeling body, energy body. You are already accessing that. Nothing mystical about, in a sense. Cannot see maybe with naked eyes, but subtle body is a bridge, the important one. This is the access point, you can say.
The bridge between the physical body and the subtlest body. of the wind and mind. So it is a level we work with to connect to the subtlest dimension. That is who and what we are. The subtle body consists of, the psychic channels, energy wind called prana. And the essential energy drop is called Bindu, tigle.
A bit technical, but in other words, the subtle body each of us has this. So this is, all these are very precious. I’m not going into this teaching on this, but they’re very important. So in other words, each of us has a treasure. You are the treasure vase. So your body consists of all these important components.
So you asked about energy. For the lack of better translation. Prana, Lung in Tibetan, Prana in Sanskrit, when we use it in a subtle body context. This practice of working with a subtle body, to connect to the subtlest body, is called the Yoga of Wind.
which is the main practice in the tantric so called completion
phase. So how do, did you ask, how do we find more of a relationship with this aspect to ourselves?
Yes.
And the subtle body, feeling body, right? Yes, we connect it, energy body. The more we can feel or sense our own body without judgment, the more we can have a relationship with the subtle dimension of the body. So in the subtle body training, we this is the we are doing, we are connecting, trying to connect to this level of body. Yeah. Already related, right? Physical body. The sat sat that a body. And the satist body, which is a consist of the satist wind and the mind, so already related, but we are really focusing on the sat sat body so that the kind of act going to the boss.
Mm-hmm. Both was the dimension of the body.
Olivia Clementine: I wanted to read out loud these two quotations you have from Yeshe Tsogyal and Jigme Lingpa from your book. So the first one’s from Yeshe Tsogyal, a female enlightened being.
So the quote is, “to voyage through the sky with this material body, meditate on the subtle channels and inner winds and gain mastery over your energies and thoughts. Ultimate accomplishment is nothing other than that.”
And then from Jigme Lingpa, ” unless energy flows freely through the body, the pure light of consciousness will remain obscured so take these physical practices to heart.”
Chöying Khandro: So all these great masters, awake masters, are telling us the importance of working with the subtle body. So this is crucial to unveil the true nature of who and what we are. So in that sense, Dakini helps us. Dakini is one dimensional. Dakini is a subtle body. Inner Dakini is a subtle body. So in other words, each of us has Dakini residing in each of us.
Assist us, bless us, bless our channels, and energy, wind, and the tickle and energy drops. So we need, it’s necessary to make a connection the relationship to the kidneys so that the can help us to open up the, all the channels and so forth. So that the ultimate subtlest mind unveils, like the flowers open up.
Olivia Clementine: How does the practice of the Dakini help us experience the non duality of the sacred and ordinary or the absolute and relative, we’re kind of talking about it in all kinds of ways already, but just we’ll get to the center of this, of this piece.
Chöying Khandro: The center of this, this maybe came back to the beginning, like a paradox I was kind of talking about.
So start, let’s start with a quote again. I love this Dakini quote. Let’s see. Dakini brazen one, that’s the name of the Dakini. Brazen one, an Indian Dakini sing a celebration of this paradox, Dakini paradox. – “Looking, but not seeing. That’s my eye. Thinking, but not minding. That’s my mind.
Speaking, but not expressing. That’s my tongue. Traveling, but not going. That’s my path.” So we come back to this koan, Dakini as a Paradox of Reality. We kind of touched on the etymology of the Tibetan rendering of the world itself. denote this, Khandroma it’s translated in English. Yes. Sky, gore, or Sky Dancer or women who moves and engage, engages actively within the boundaries space of emptiness, perfectly holding the two pole of the mundane and the sacred or the relative.
And the ultimate, right, sky is a complete emptiness, right? Then actively engaged with moves or goals, goals or dances, that’s Dakini. So Dakini does nothing, while she does everything, without moving an inch from the realization of emptiness. In the vast expanse of totality, she wholeheartedly acts in the world of conditioning, while never steering from the realization of the wisdom of emptiness.
Right, so within the essence of emptiness, Dakini manifests in various forms in the world of suffering and conflict accordingly. Oftentimes fiercely and provocatively appearances are impeded ariss in the domain of this absolute expansive totality. Her action always allies from spontaneous great compassion and the dwelling wakefulness.
So you can say, kind of summarizing Dakini is awakened lady who is active. The aspect of the awakened mind. This innate wakefulness called buddha nature, inherent in each of us, regardless of gender or appearance. She is both awake knowingness and the play of knowingness, P L A Y, play of knowingness with its creative expression.
Although we move with her in her mysterious, birthless, and ceaseless life, It is hard to find her and touch her since she is elusive, not abiding in obvious places. So we have to see the not so obvious places. We cannot find her in obvious places.
Olivia Clementine: What would you consider an obvious place?
Chöying Khandro: So instead of turning our eyes to the outside of ourselves. And looking into ourself. Maybe we didn’t talk much about subjectivities. I feel important in terms of meeting her or recognizing her. So you asked the question a little bit about, so how can we recognize dakinis?
Naropa advised another quote, “look into the mirror of the mind. The mysterious home of the dakini.” As we know, dakini doesn’t live in the usual or obvious places as we assume she might. She is hidden, ambiguous, elusive, and elusive in nature. Living in a thin or subtle place where we often miss the opportunity to meet her.
So we talked about charnel ground, so that’s the one. It’s that charnel ground, part of ourselves that we don’t want to see. We have this blind spot, this fear block, invoking vulnerabilities, shadow, so.
So Dakini is so intimate with our subjectivities. That if we are genuinely curious about meeting her, we have no choice but to turn our attention to our own meditative practice.
So that’s kind of a nutshell, how to recognize dakinis. In other words, we need to develop the eyes, our own eyes, eyes which has a capacity to see dakinis. Dakini is everywhere but nowhere unless we have dakini eyes or the capacity to or be able to see her. In that sense, we have to turn our mind to to ourselves subjectivities because the dakini doesn’t exist independently or the self existently like out there? Just as anything else.
Olivia Clementine: A question in response to what you were just sharing more to your Way of practicing these days because you teach a lot. You’re very available in the Dharma world and but you’ve also done a lot of pilgrimage and retreat.
And have you found some way to to integrate in depth practice? In the midst of this kind of lifestyle, and I’m sure you have, or do you feel like one must leave the world for a period to really be able to have those eyes?
Chöying Khandro: I think both. We are not living in ancient, we don’t have luxurious time, you know, back in those days, retreating into the Himalayan cave or something like that. Actually, we don’t need to, we are householders, tantric practitioners, and then so integration is the game, you can say, the work, make everything into the practice or everything to the dharma path, you know, whatever arises in our daily life. Having said that certain period of time, and retreat is intensive retreat is very important. So integration is important on a day to day basis important, but also certain period of time, you know, kind of retreating from the daily busy, active lifestyle to devote oneself into fully self fully into the actualization of bodhichitta and then once they come out of that short period of time retreat and become kind of rejuvenated or enriched. And then so those are kind of important. I feel both. Every place is a Dojo training place. Right.
So if you have a work, a work place is a place for your training, but then you have to train your mind on the cushion first, then off the cushion, then kind of back and forth and back and forth. In certain time retreat, yeah, devoting oneself, retreat is important.
And your how, Olivia, you, you were doing retreat?
Olivia Clementine: I’ve done some retreat this year, yes.
Chöying Khandro: In the connection to Dakini, that’s that sort of a long term intensive practice retreat. That’s the place or that’s the time when you meet Dakini or Dakini show up in many various ways, maybe give you a lot of challenges. Or maybe assist you or guide you or some bring some blessings. So yeah, so that’s important in terms of Dakini practice as well. Intense practice.
Olivia Clementine: And you’re offering a new path, a 16 month online course in September, it’s called dakini Path of Vajrayogini. That’s also connected to the Vajrayogini Highest Yoga Tantra Empowerment. Do you want to speak first of all about Vajrayogini and, and about this course?
Chöying Khandro: It speaks about Vajrayogini. Wow. First of all, thank you for asking. So in our tradition, our great lamas of the past kept Vajrayogini so secret, holy, and private. They hesitated to even utter the name of their personal yidam to others. And actually refers to her as the one whose name I cannot say in public.
So Vajrayogini is one of the thirteen golden dharmas. that has been treasured in the Sakya traditions originally and was originated, kept in a locked room before it was transmitted to the Gelu masters. So I’m just saying Vajrayogini practice traditionally, very holy and ancient. and special. So, rooted in the ancient wisdom of masters in the past, it’s tremendously beneficial to our modern world.
While she is such a special tantric deity, geared toward selected, advanced so called practitioners, she is especially well suited for our contemporary culture dominated by strong desire, confusion, and delusions. And this is a challenging time, so Vajrayogini is a deity for this time. And then, you know, His Holiness, Dalai Lama, talks about the importance of presenting authentic tantric teachings.
Because now tantric teachings are available everywhere. If you Google it, you can find some kind of information, regardless of it’s correct, right information or not. So since there are so many misunderstood or confused ones available, so it’s important to present it. You know, authentically. So that’s His Holiness stand in terms of tantric teaching.
So, considering her wise advice, I made the decision to offer Vajrayogini empowerment online to the public. Of course, there are some qualifications and prerequisites. So there are two ways to receive, or maybe three ways to receive this empowerment, this particular empowerment. We made a decision to do that as a blessing only without commitment and engaging to receive empowerment and engaging tantric commitments.
That’s number two. Then third one is that receive empowerment and engage in commitment and join this dakini path that follows. So in terms of dakini path, that is 16 month online course and it is a deep exploration of Vajrayogini practice. Both of these, offering, empowerment, and online course are open to those who resonate with this profound path of Vajrayogini and are ready to dive into this practice or somebody who wants to receive it as a practice, receive it as a blessing.
We’ll explore traditional Vajrayogini practice through the lens of dakini journey. That is quite challenging, but more experiential, I would say. Traditionally, Vajrayogini practice was explained or commented from the Eleven Yogas.
It’s called the 11 steps, 11 yogas. So now I would like to explore Vajrayogini sadhana and practice through the lens of dakini journey. So each of us tread the unique dakini journey through Vajrayogini practice so no doubt, each individual will blossom as they personally navigate the dakini path. I’m hoping, including myself .
Olivia Clementine: I hope many people go and take a look, if they’re inspired, and even just to read about it, if they’re unclear of all the details, everything that it entails.
Anything else you want to share Khandro la?
Chöying Khandro: Can I read a paragraph from the book about the Dakini journey?
But I just want to make sure the Dakini journey does not self exist. “The Dakini journey has been an invitation to live and dance. Our own Dakini dance with compassion and emptiness, two sides of the same coin. It’s an invitation to discover our own compassionate, colorful dance as Dakini within the boundless expanse of sky.
We have seen this beautiful and harmonious union in Dakini, the dancer of paradox. As our Dakini eyes have opened. It may feel like our journey as dakini in the world of joy and sorrow, passion, and hollow horror, horror, passion and horror has just begun, but having felt awakened qualities of dakini such as softness, tenderness, richness.
Spontaneity, courage, confidence, fearlessness, and philosophy, philosophy within. We are now ready to integrate, embody, express, and celebrate Dakini in the world. It’s time to fully show our Dakini self to the world. Let’s take a moment to connect to the charnel ground and feel the energy in the heart. This sphere of light at the heart center, it is brightly shining now.
The light filled our entire body, the light of joy, of sweetness, of love, that is who we are. And now we know what to do. We send the light through every pore of our skin into the world, the broken world of unthinkable suffering that the beings are facing. On this planet,
the light goes out in ten directions. The light of love and healing, removing all the pain from each being, and sharing the wisdom we just experienced. We allow the light nectar to go out and heal the world. Our heart are so open now that we cannot help but share.
We slowly gather the right nectar to return it back to our body, to the core of our body, into the central channel, our heart center, and then we rest for a few moments.”
The words of this poem By L. R. – expression Dakini’s confidence in us, our confidence in our own buddha nature. “Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break and all things can be mended, not with time, as they say, but with intention.” So now with the intention of Bodhicitta, she adds, “so go, love intentionally, extravagantly, and unconditionally, the broken world waits in darkness for the light. That is you.”