Deities/Yidams

Deities – or Yidams – are what Tibetan Buddhism all about: it is guru-yoga. This is Tantric or Vajrayana practice. It is the fast path with few hardships…so they say. Yidam practice has very colourful visualisations, and can sound complicated, but we are only creating a mental image, and then identifying with its qualities. Finally, the visualisation is dissolved, and we rest in emptiness. At the end, we re-establishing the connection…walking around all day with these visualised adornments! (this can play havoc when walking through doorways!!! 🙂 )

You don’t have to do this practice.

It’s a back-up plan for projections in the Bardo (death period). Some just ‘do’ Dzogchen/ Mahamudra, which is directly resting in emptiness. But let’s be honest…how often do we remember empty essence? So, repetitive guru-yoga is a good back-up plan. It also connects us with an authentic lineage.

Deities reflect our own innate qualities: that which you recognise is what you are. Here we are allowed to be that pretentious!

When we are engaged in deity practice, it is not the deity who receives our supplications – it is our own minds. The deity merely reflects our own inner qualities. The deity doesn’t think you are good if you do this and bad if you don’t. You can be inspired by their good qualities, or not. Deities are like the sun – they just shine.

In doing these practices, the mind receives blessings of clarity. If we engage in prayer sloppily, inaccurately, or carelessly, this only has an effect on our own mind: the deity is neither pleased nor displeased. The important thing is our heartfelt motivation and intention. Saying OM MANI PEME NUM instead of OM MANI PEME HUM may be frowned upon, but if done with a pure heart will have tremendous effects…so they say.

As we sow, so we reap.

There is no point in chanting in a language we do not understand as this will merely be a vague symbol. Once we understand what we are doing in a practice, and why, then to chant in Tibetan or Sanskrit is relevant (these languages have an exact meter which makes it easy to chant to a specific tune..and at speed!). Sometimes it is good just to chant, and not worry about the meaning, just going with the flow and intention: this can sometimes be quite blissful.

The quality of our practice and our reverence towards that upon which we are engaged is dependent upon us, rather than the deity.

The deity represents our ultimate state, and in that, it is more powerful than we are at this moment. Deity practice helps us to let go of our earthly limitations.

Deities
– luminous wisdom projections –
have the same nature as our essence.

We are all rainbow beings!