Zabmo Yangtik Guru Practice

The Essence Practice of the Primordial Wisdom Guru

from the Zabmo Yangtik

by Longchen Rabjam

In devotion, I pay homage to the noble gurus!

You have perfected the two accumulations and twofold benefit,
Single embodiment of the activity of the victors of the three times,
Whose compassion and skilful deeds defy the imagination—
Glorious protector guru, at your feet, in devotion I pay homage.

The essence of the whole profound path of secret mantra
Is cultivating devotion for the guru.
Since its forms are so very numerous,
Here, for posterity’s sake, I shall explain how they are combined.

There are four parts: (1) outer, (2) inner, (3) secret, and (4) ultimate.

1.Outer Practice

Take refuge and generate bodhicitta. Then, consider that light radiates from a sun-and-moon locket upon a lotus above your head. It invokes your own root guru from the natural state, surrounded by hosts of maṇḍala deities, ḍākinīs and an ocean of oath-bound protectors. They all remain above your head. In addition, invite all those gurus with whom you have a dharmic connection and all the gurus of the lineage, and consider that they are all absorbed [into the field of merit]. Imagine that you present them with innumerable offerings—outer, inner and secret—as you recite "oṃ vajra puṣpe dhūpe āloke gandhe naivedye śabda āḥ hūṃ."

Then, recite the following in a melodious chant:

O Guru Vajradhara,
Only friend to those in the three realms of saṃsāra,
Refuge for beings who lack protection,
Great stairway to liberation,
And torch dispelling ignorance—
I, enshrouded in darkness, take refuge in you.
Protect me, the protectorless one,
Who is mired within saṃsāra.
As I am tormented by fiery emotions,
Let fall the cooling rains of your compassion.
Enlightened guru, precious one,
I have no other source of hope but you.
From now until I reach the essence of awakening,
As you observe my hopes and joys and sorrows,
Look upon me, helpless as I am, with compassion!
Dispel sickness, harmful influences, hindrances and obstructors!
Inspire me with blessings of enlightened body, speech and mind,
And grant me the attainments, ordinary and supreme!
oṃ āḥ hūṃ mahāguru siddhi phala hūṃ

Through your taking refuge in the guru and Three Jewels in this way, a stream of nectar flows from the guru’s form and permeates your own body, outside and inside. It purifies sickness, harmful influences, misdeeds and obscurations; it brings the two types of siddhi; and it enhances realization of the view and samādhi. At the end, when you have visualised this process for yourself and all other beings, consider that the whole of appearance and existence becomes the realm of the guru. And without parting from a perception of the guru, imagine that your body—outside and inside—becomes filled with tiny forms of the guru, who grant their blessings. Then dedicate the merit. Visualise the guru as you carry out all your ordinary tasks, whether moving about, resting, sitting or standing, and consider that whatever you do is part of the guru’s activity. In so doing, you will surely release all perceptions into the expanse of dharmatā. Such is the outer practice.

2. Inner Practice

Take refuge and generate bodhicitta. Then, out of an experience of emptiness, visualise yourself as Vajrasattva, white and holding a vajra and bell. Above the crown of your head, on seats of sun- and moon-discs and a lotus, is your root guru in the form of Vajradhara, blue in colour, holding vajra and bell and embracing the consort. The consort holds a curved knife and skull-cup and embraces her male partner. They both wear jewelled and bone ornaments, and are seated in vajra posture. From the syllables ha, ri, ni and sa, countless white, yellow, red and green ḍākinīs appear in the four directions, each holding a curved knife and skull-cup and in dancing posture. Light shines from the guru’s form, purifying your own and all sentient beings’ obscurations. Consider that everything is transformed into a realm of vīras and ḍākinīs, and the sound of "Ha ri ni sa!" naturally reverberates. Recite the mantra "oṃ āḥ hūṃ mahāguru hrīḥ ma ha ri ni sa siddhi phala hūṃ." Then, at the end, bindus of white and red bodhicitta flow from the guru and consort’s point of union, entering your brahma-aperture and filling your body.

• You experience physical bliss and receive the vase empowerment.
• You experience vocal bliss and receive secret empowerment.
• You experience mental bliss and receive the knowledge-wisdom empowerment.
• You experience the essence of bliss, empty and clear, and receive the precious word empowerment.

Rest evenly in an experience of bliss and clarity, without grasping and free from conceptual elaboration, and consider that the nectar flow causes great bliss to fill your body and mind. Maintain gentle breathing, and consider that fire blazes from the a-stroke at your navel, melting the haṃ syllable at the brahma-aperture, which then drips down together with the flowing bodhicitta from the guru and consort. As this descends to your forehead, throat, heart, and secret place below the navel, recognize it as the wisdom of joy, supreme joy, special joy and coemergent joy. Meditate on the experience of clear, empty bliss. Finally, the guru and consort melt into light that has the nature of bliss. This then dissolves into your own heart, and you yourself gradually disappear towards your own heart-centre. At the end, relax in a state devoid of mental activity and settle for a while in meditative equipoise. Then, dedicate the merit. Throughout all your daily tasks, visualise everything and everyone as a pure realm of deities and palaces, and train in illusoriness and unreality. This will bring the dawn of special realization, increased qualities, and actualisation of co-emergent primordial wisdom beyond the ordinary mind. Such is the inner practice.

3. Secret Practice

Take refuge and generate bodhicitta. Then, visualise the guru Samantabhadra and consort, deep blue in colour, upon a lotus, sun and moon within your heart. They are seated, cross-legged in the posture of equanimity. Rays of five-coloured light—blue, yellow, red, green and white—emanate from their forms and enter your own body, purifying sickness, harmful influences, misdeeds and obscurations, bringing realization of the five primordial wisdoms, and releasing your illusory body of flesh and blood into clear light. Further rays of light shine forth, liberating the outer environment and its inhabitants into a realm of luminosity. Meditate for a while with your awareness directed towards the clarity in which the entire infinitude of space is a realm of fivefold wisdom. Then consider that this draws in, and the consort dissolves into the male deity at your heart. The male deity then naturally fades away, and in a state in which nothing is established, realisation of the inner sphere of primordial purity—empty, clear and without centre or periphery—will dawn. Thereafter, train in recognising everything as the natural manifestation of appearance and emptiness, naked and transparent. This will lead to the true import of the natural Great Perfection, the primordial wisdom that is the ultimate essence. Such is the secret practice.

4. Ultimate Practice

Take refuge and generate bodhicitta. Then, the previous three forms of guru yoga are all brought together in the single form of the root guru. Recognise that while he[1] has the appearance of the sublime guru, he is, in essence, the great Vajradhara and has the realization of Samantabhadra. Make outer, inner and secret offerings, and pray intensely. Practise the daytime yoga by meditating on the meaning of Trekchö, according to which whatever arises within a direct experience of the dharmakāya of awareness and emptiness does so freely and impartially; and meditating on Tögal, so that the ordinary mind is exhausted in recognition of the natural visions of directly manifest luminosity. For the nighttime yoga of darkness, either meditate as in the daytime yoga or adopt the posture of a sleeping lion and visualise beams of five-coloured light streaming between your heart centre and the palace of your skull. At the upper end, at your two eyes, is the lamp of empty spheres, orange with an outer edge of five-coloured light; at the lower end, within the heart, is the lamp of self-arisen wisdom, a sphere of five-coloured light. As you fall asleep, train in causing each to dissolve into the other—one ascending and the other descending before they dissolve. Finally, fall asleep in an experience of the dissolution within the heart or skull palace. Though this, at first, bad dreams will become good ones. Then, you will recognise dreams as such; then, dream less; and then, dreams will cease. When you wake up the following day, adopt the lion’s gaze and direct your attention unwaveringly towards a white a (ཨ) floating in space at the distance of a bow-length. Then, when you are no longer conceiving of the a or anything else, realisation of the naturally arisen wisdom of primordial purity—clear and empty rigpa, free from conceptual elaboration—will dawn.

In between sessions of daytime and nighttime meditation, use "Hik!" to send the light rays from the heart, which have dissolved into the lamp of empty spheres, out through the brahma-aperture and ever higher into space, until they are no longer observable; then rest. At other times, send them outward from the two eyes further and further into the space ahead, and then rest in the experience of their unobservability. The wisdom of primordial purity, clear and empty, will arise in an instant. With such prior training, by focusing on space and awareness at the moment of death, either by means of the water lamp [of the eyes] or the brahma-aperture and transferring in such a way, you will find freedom in a direct ascent to awakening, without passing through the bardos. As Union of the Sun and Moon says:

When space and rigpa are unmoving,
For such a person there will be no bardo.
Buddhahood will undoubtedly follow.

This is the ultimate practice.

Thus, these most profound, essential key points
Distilling tantras, scriptures and pith instructions,
Have been set out by Natsok Rangdrol Zangpo.
Through such virtue, may all beings find freedom.

This concludes the text entitled The Essence Practice of the Primordial Wisdom Guru, composed by Natsok Rangdrol, a yogin of the supreme vehicle, on the slopes of Gangri Tökar. Let it be virtuous! Virtuous! Virtuous!

| Translated by Adam Pearcey with the generous support of the Tsadra Foundation, 2025.

Bibliography

Tibetan Edition

klong chen rab 'byams. "snying po ye shes kyi bla ma sgrub pa" In snying thig ya bzhi. 13 vols. Delhi: Sherab Gyaltsen Lama, 1975. Vol. 12: 56–64 (4.5 folios)

Version: 1.0-20251105