Checking meditation on the mandala and basis Heruka Flashcards
Location of charnel grounds compared to VY
Heruka - eight great charnel grounds outside protection circle
Vajrayogini - eight great charnel grounds inside protection circle
Explain the face, legs and arms:
Principal face dark blue, left face green, back face red, right face yellow. Each face has three eyes and a rosary of five-pronged vajras on its forehead.
Right leg outstretched and treads on the head of black Bhairawa.
Bent left leg treads on the breast of red Kalarati, who has four hands.
I have twelve arms. The first two embrace Vajravarahi, right hand holding a five-pronged vajra and my left hand a bell.
The next two hands hold an elephant skin.
Third right hand holds a damaru, third left hand holds a khatanga.
Fourth right hand holds an axe, fourth left hand holds a skullcup full with blood.
Fifth right hand holds a curved knife, fifth left hand holds a vajra noose.
Sixth right hand holds a three-pointed spear and sixth left hand holds a four-faced head of Brahma.
Explain the heads:
My hair is tied up in a topknot marked with a small crossed vajra of various colours.
Each head is adorned with a crown of five human skulls strung together top and bottom with a rosary of black vajras.
On the left side of my crown is a half moon, slightly tilted.
My four sets of fangs are bared and terrifying.
What are the nine moods?
Three physical moods:
> majesty (body maintains an air of majesty)
> heroism (feet tread on Bhairawa and Kalarati)
> menace (frown at the center of my brow).
Three verbal moods:
> laughter (slight smile on my lips)
> wrath (my bared fangs)
> ferocity (my tongue curled back)
Three mental moods:
> compassion (long almond-shaped eyes)
> attentiveness (my wide-open eyes)
> serenity (my looking at the Mother from the corner of my eyes)
More:
Lower garment of a tiger skin
Long necklace of fifty shrunken moist human heads.
Six bone ornaments:
(i) crown ornament,
(ii) ear ornaments,
(iii) necklace,
(iv) bracelets and anklets,
(v) a heart ornament,
(vi) ashes of human bone smeared over my entire body.
Hair is woven through the eight spokes of the crown ornament and gathered into a topknot, which is surmounted by a nine-faceted jewel.
Vajrayogini:
The Father is embracing the Blessed Mother Vajrayogini, who has a red-coloured body, one face, two hands and three eyes. She is naked with freely flowing hair and wears a lower garment made from fragments of skull.
Her left hand embracing the Father’s neck, holds a skullcup brimming with the blood of the four maras.
Her right hand in the threatening mudra brandishes a curved knife, opposing the malignant forces of the ten directions.
Her body shines with the brilliance like that of the fire at the end of the aeon.
Her two thighs are clasped around the Father’s thighs. She is the nature of blissful great compassion. Adorned with five mudras, she wears a crown of five shrunken human skulls and a necklace of fifty shrunken human skulls.
Corpses
symbolize impermanence and the faults of samsara
Corpses
symbolize impermanence and the faults of samsara, particularly sickness, ageing and death
Corpses
symbolize impermanence and the faults of samsara, particularly sickness, ageing and death
Corpses
symbolize impermanence and the faults of samsara, particularly sickness, ageing and death
Lake
symbolizes conventional bodhichitta
Naga
symbolizes the six perfections and the ten perfections
Jewel held by naga
symbolizes the four ways of gathering disciples
Wild animals
> symbolize generation stage realizations, and
their eating corpses teaches us to destroy our ordinary appearances and ordinary conceptions through the power of our generation stage practice.
Tree
symbolizes the central channel
Directional guardian at the foot of the tree
symbolizes the downward-voiding wind just below the navel
Regional guardian at the top of the tree
symbolizes the life-supporting wind at the heart
Fire at the base of the mountain
symbolizes the inner fire of tummo at the navel
Cloud
symbolizes the white bodhichitta in the crown chakra
The eight charnel grounds themselves, four in the cardinal directions and four in the intermediate directions,
symbolize the four joys of serial and reverse order
Mountain
symbolizes immovable equipoise of spontaneous great bliss mixed with emptiness
Stupa at the top of the mountain
symbolizes the three bodies of a Buddha.
What is inside the charnel grounds?
the protection circle of the varja ground, fence, canopy and tent, surrounded by five-coloured wisdom fires swirling counter-clockwise.
Describe the celestial mansion
Like a large square house with an elaborate entrance on each side.
The jewelled walls have five layers.
Rafters whose ends form the shape of sea-monsters with strings of pearls hanging from their mouths.
Describe the celestial mansion (2)
Around the outer foot of the wall runs a red ledge upon which stand sixteen offering goddesses of various colours and postures, each with three eyes and four arms.
More:
At the front of each entrance is an eleven-tiered archway. Above each archway is a Dharma Wheel flanked right and left by a male and female deer.
To the right and left of each archway, set in golden vases, are wish-granting trees bearing the seven precious possessions of a king.
More: 1
On the very top of the mansion is a square lantern adorned with a golden roof and surmounted by an eight-faceted jewel and a five-pronged vajra.
Inside this is a precious jewelled case containing the scriptures of the Heruka root Tantra.
Where are the deities?
On the lowest platform are the sixteen deities of the body wheel;
on the second platform are the sixteen deities of the speech wheel;
on the third platform are the sixteen deities of the heart wheel.
Where are the Deities of the commitment wheel and great bliss wheel?
At the four inner corners of the mansion, and at the doorways to each hallway, stand the eight Deities of the commitment wheel.
Upon the petals in the cardinal directions stand the four Yoginis of the great bliss wheel.
At the very center of the lotus, standing on a sun mandala, we appear as the Blessed One Heruka, with a dark-blue body and four faces.
