Vajrasattva Mantra by Sangharakshita

... say 'make me a better

mind', 'Sreyah' means 'high', 'eminent', 'lofty'. It suggests an Enlightened mind; now that I'm purified of all sins let mine be an Enlightened mind, a noble mind, a sublime mind. In other words the mind of a Buddha. And then you say 'Ha Ha Ha Ha Hoh', - the Transcendental Laughter, the significance of which is that when you wake up, as it were, to your own true nature, you think 'how ridiculous!, I thought that I was impure; but I find that I'm completely pure. I thought that I was unenlightened, but actually I was Enlightened all the time; what a ridiculous mistake!' (General laughter). So you laugh.

Now let out these five Transcendental Laughs. Yes? One for each of the Five Wisdoms, the Five Jnanas. Yes? Or each of the Five Buddhas. The 'Ha Ha Ha Ha', the four aspects; the 'Hoh' is the central Wisdom of the Dharmadhatu. You just explode in this sort of way.

And then you say 'Bhagavan Sarva Tathagata'. This means - it is translated here 'Blessed all ye Buddhas'. It's not quite like that. Not only do you realise your own true Buddha Nature and explode with laughter that you'd ever thought you were anything else - when you look all around you see nothing but Buddhas; all beings seem Enlightened, all beings seem Buddhas to you; you see them in their ultimate essence; so you say, as it were, 'well look, everywhere, nothing but Buddhas, all Buddhas'. 'Bhagavan Sarva Tathagata' all are blessed Buddhas, Tathagatas. So this is your, sort of, experience.

So that's the, sort of, highest point that you reach, but for the time being at least, you can't sustain it, you're not yet liberated; it's only a partial vision or a momentary vision.

So then you say 'Vajrama Me Munca'. 'O Vajra-like Ones', - that is to say 'All you Buddhas - liberate me from my conditioned state, my conditioned status; my feeling that I am impure'.

'Vajri Bhava', 'Let me be truly Vajric; let me be ultimately real, let me be a true Individual'.

'Mahasamayasattva'. There's no real grammar here but you appeal, as it were, again to Vajrasattva as 'Mahasamayasattva' He is the great Being of the bond. You sort of remember that there was this pledge, this agreement between you and Vajrasattva, and He has kept it; you've done your bit and He has certainly done His. So, He is the Great Being, the Great Hero, of the bond - that oath or pledge.

And then you say 'Ah Hum Phat', which is translated 'Away with Evil'. 'Phat' means, especially 'destroy' - all evil, all impurity has been destroyed, wiped out; they don't exist any more.

So, you see, it's a very, powerful Mantra, and this is the sort of consciousness one should have, or feeling that one should have, as one goes through it, clause by clause; that you are getting closer and closer, nearer and nearer, to your own true nature, which is the Vajrasattva Nature, which is the embodiment of Primeval Purity, that in fact the purification from sin consists in that realisation that in the ultimate sense you never have sinned.

So, this is quite a good, sort of, antidote for any kind of Christian conditioning - that in your ultimate essence you are not a miserable sinner - that you are absolutely pure. Not on the surface, maybe. On the surface, yes, you may be quite grubby, but in the inner depths, you are Vajrasattva-like; primevally pure.

So, after doing the Visualisation you recite the Mantra, and this is the sort of feeling that you should have as you go through it; of that alienation between your present grubby self - let's say grubby rather than sinful - your present grubby self - and your true, immaculately pure Vajrasattva nature; that that alienation, as the Mantra progresses, is gradually overcome, and each time you recite it you get deeper and deeper into it.

Any point or query about that?

It is really quite straightforward, that the main thing to understand is the progressive nature of these clauses of the Mantra, and how the alienation between you and your own true Vajrasattva nature is being progressively overcome. [Pause]

Question: How should one recite the Mantra?

Sangharakshita: It's quite straightforward. [[[Bhante]] then recited the Mantra]

OM VAJRASATTVA SAMAYA MANUPALAYA VAJRASATTVA TVENOPATISHTA DRDHO ME BHAVA SUTOSYO ME BHAVA SUPOSYO ME BHAVA ANURAKTO ME BHAVA SARVA SIDDHIM ME PREYCHA SARVA KARMA SUCHA ME CHITTAM SREYAH KURU HUM HA HA HA HA HOH

BHAGAVAN SARVA TATHAGATA VAJRAMA ME MUNCA VAJRI BHAVA MAHASAMAYASATTVA AH HUM PHAT!

Just like that. There's a sort of rhythm, but nothing especially musical, though there are tunes to which one can chant it: but that's chanting, say in the context of Puja, rather than reciting in the context of meditation.

Question: It's interesting that although Vajrasattva is an aspect of the Adi-Buddha, the Ultimate

Essence, it's almost the most basic Vajrayana Practice, Foundation Yoga.

Sangharakshita: Well, in a way, that is a Vajrayanic principle - you start at the end. [Laughs]

Question: It fits with the idea of Vajrasattva.

Sangharakshita: It's a bit parallel to Zen. There's a Zen saying that I've quoted this before - 'If you want to climb a mountain, start at the top'.

Question: Does Samantabhadra have the same association with Vairocana that Vajrasattva has with Akshobya?

Sangharakshita: Yes, broadly speaking, yes.

Question: You see sometimes in Bodhisattva ...

Sangharakshita: Yes, right, yes. Though the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra is a different figure from the Buddha Samantabhadra. I mean, historically speaking. But you often get Samantabhadra in the context of the Nyingmapas. You have this arrangement of Padmasambhava as the Nirmanakaya, the Thousand Armed Avalokiteshvara as the Sambhogakaya, Amitabha as the Dharmakaya, and Samantabhadra as the Svabhavikakaya.

And in the same way, in feminine form, for the Nyingmapas, you have Ekajati as the Nirmanakaya, Tara as the Sambhogakaya.

Question: Akashadhateshvari.

Sangharakshita: No there's Samantabhadri and the ... I can't remember now... Samantabhadri, it must be just the 'Trikaya' in this case. Ekajati as the Nirmanakaya, Tara as the Sambhogakaya, Samantabhadri as the Dharmakaya. In the Vajrayana they're very fond of these, sort of, correlations.

Question: Why is it that in the prostration practice you've got Samantabhadra as being brown, whereas very often He's seen as being blue?

Sangharakshita: Well, you find iconographically both colours.

Question: Does it matter which... should it be brown?

Sangharakshita: It doesn't really - it's just that it's a distinguishing colour. Maybe it was brown because the other colours have been pre-empted by Five Buddhas of the Mandala. What other colour would you have? If it can't be red, or yellow or blue or green or white. If you have a dark blue Samantabhadra it's the same colour as Akshobya. So perhaps it is better to have a distinctive colour. I mean, sometimes He's shown as dark blue, sometimes as brown, but I think I prefer it to be brown, just because it was a different and therefore a distinctive colour.

Question: Doesn't Vajrasattva sometimes appear as blue?

Sangharakshita: Sometimes as dark blue, sometimes light blue, sometimes white. The Sadhanas that I've got, apart from the Mula Yoga Practice, are blue - dark blue - which is the Akshobya colour, and the Yum, the female counterpart is then white.

Question: [unclear] And he's dressed as a young Bodhisattva?

Sangharakshita: Yes, though very often in a naked form, just with the jewel ornaments. Samantabhadra as the Adi-Buddha, as Svabhavikakaya, is always represented without any garments or ornaments at all, for obvious reasons.

Sometimes the Dharmakaya is represented in this way. If you have the Trikaya, and I've seen it in a temple In Nepal, you've got three images, a quite good symbolism, in my opinion. There's Padmasambhava on the ground floor, or Sakyamuni; this is the historical plane. Then there's Amitabha in gorgeous royal robes on the first floor; this in the Archetypal plane, and then a naked Samantabhadra right at the top, on the second floor, representing the Dharmakaya or the Absolute plane.

We have a little of that sort of thing, you know, at Sukhavati - I don't know if you've realised that. There are going to be three levels of shrine. Downstairs we've got the Meditating Buddha, you know, in the main shrine, at the human, historical level. Then, upstairs we have, or we're going to have, the Avalokiteshvara, thousand-armed, and also Padmasambhava.

Question: Where.............