Outer, Inner and Secret Guru Yoga

Outer, Inner and Secret Guru Yoga

from the Khandro Nyingtik

Homage to the trinity of guru, yidam and ḍākinī!

If you wish to practise the guru yoga of the Ḍākinīs’ Heart-Essence of the Great Perfection then take refuge and generate bodhicitta in the usual way.

Outer Guru Yoga

Consider that above the crown of your head, upon seats of lotus and a moon disc, sits your root guru in the form of Vajrasattva, white in colour, with one face and two hands. His right hand holds a vajra at his heart, while his left, which rests upon his hip, holds a bell of polished silver. Some of his hair is bound up in a topknot; the rest hangs freely. His body is dressed in various silk and jewelled ornaments. At his crown is a white oṃ upon a wheel. At his throat is a red āḥ within the heart of a lotus. At his heart is a white hūṃ upon a sun and moon. This white hūṃ is surrounded by the hundred syllables, which resonate with their own sounds.

Rays of light emanate from the three syllables and make offerings that delight all the buddhas and bodhisattvas, invoking their wisdom minds, so that boundless rays of light flow back from their enlightened body, speech and mind and dissolve into Vajrasattva, who grows larger and more resplendent. Immaculate nectar, the colour of mercury, then flows from the white hūṃ at Vajrasattva’s heart and exits from his big toe (it then flows into your own brahma-aperture)[1] and descends through your central channel. This purifies all the misdeeds and obscurations you have accumulated throughout your lives in beginningless saṃsāra until now—like water washing away accumulated dirt and grime—which exit through your lower orifices and the pores of your skin. Imagine that your body becomes pure and pristine like immaculate crystal or an inflated balloon[2] Recite the hundred-syllable mantra as many times as possible. Then rest in a non-referential state.

This is the outer guru yoga for the purification of obscurations.

Inner Guru Yoga

If you wish to practise the inner guru yoga, consider that the Vajrasattva above melts into light and becomes a white hūṃ together with a visarga. Immeasurable rays of light then emanate forth from this hūṃ, striking the container that is the outer world and transforming it into a celestial palace. As the light rays strike the world’s inhabitants they transform them into the nature of Vajrasattva. All these beings then melt into light and become white hūṃ syllables. The original hūṃ then radiates further light rays which gather all these hūṃ syllables, causing them to dissolve into the primary hūṃ. That hūṃ then becomes even more resplendent and sends out rays of light to invoke the wisdom minds of all the buddhas and bodhisattvas, who send back light rays representing their enlightened body, speech and mind, which dissolve into the hūṃ.

The hūṃ then transforms into the Guru Vajrasattva, who is deep blue in colour, holding a vajra and bell, and in indivisible union with the consort Vajrayoginī. Their bodies are adorned with the silk, bone and jewelled ornaments. Upon a sun disc at the heart of the male and female deities in indivisible union is an orange hūṃ. Light rays shoot up from this syllable, travelling up through the central channel and invoking the wisdom minds of all the buddhas and bodhisattvas.

One cubit above your head is a four-petalled multicoloured lotus upon which a white Vajrasattva appears as the embodiment of all gurus, brilliant as a hundred thousand suns. He has two hands, holding a vajra and bell, and is dressed in the various silk and jewel ornaments. At his heart is a white hūṃ, from which boundless rays of light shine forth to invoke all the buddhas and bodhisattvas who gather around like an open parasol. All their enlightened body, speech, mind, qualities and activity then dissolve into Vajrasattva. The white hūṃ at this Vajrasattva’s heart and the orange hūṃ at your own heart centre are then connected via a mantra garland, as you recite the mantra “oṃ vajra guru padma siddhi hūṃ”. Through this, all the buddhas and bodhisattvas in the sky before you recite the mantra spontaneously so that it reverberates with the force of a thousand thunder claps.

Between sessions hold the vase breath. Thereafter rest in a non-referential state.

This is the inner guru yoga.

Secret Guru Yoga

Visualize your own body as the form of the deity. Recite:

I and other sentient beings, infinite in number,
Have always been buddhas from the very beginning.
In acknowledgement that this is how things are,
I generate the mind of supreme awakening.
Likewise, I shall bring the following clearly to mind.

All that you have visualized so far melts into light, out of which the essence of the enlightened body, speech and mind of the buddhas of the three times emerges as a blue hūṃ. This syllable then emits and reabsorbs light, as before. The hūṃ transforms and becomes the great Guru Vajradhara whose crossed hands hold a vajra and bell. In his lap sits the consort Vajrayoginī, pale blue and holding a curved knife and skull-cup filled with blood as she embraces him. Both deities, male and female, are adorned with silk, bone and jewelled ornaments. At their heart are forty-two radial channels, in the centre of which is a four-petalled lotus with Samantabhadra and Samantabhadrā at its heart. They are unadorned and display the mudrā of equipoise. To the east is Vajrasattva; to the south, Ratnasambhava; to the west, Amitābha; and to the north, Amoghasiddhi. They are the foremost of the forty-two peaceful deities. The fifty-eight wrathful deities then appear as Samantabhadra’s radiance.

Above their heads is a multicoloured eight-petalled lotus, in the heart of which is a multicoloured four-petalled lotus with Guru Tötreng Tsal (Mighty Skull Garland) at its centre. To the east is Vajra Tötreng Tsal; to the south, Ratna Tötreng Tsal; to the west, Padma Tötreng Tsal; and to the north, Karma Tötreng Tsal. They are all united with their consorts. Imagine that they are surrounded at the periphery by countless forms similar to their own. On the eight-petalled lotus are the Guru’s Eight Manifestations, holding ḍamarus in their right hands and supporting bells at their hips with their left hands. They too are surrounded by countless emanations similar to themselves and are surrounded at the periphery by the gurus of the lineage.

Above Guru Tötreng Tsal’s head is Padmākara of Oḍḍiyāna; above his head is Śrī Siṃha; above his head is Garab Dorje; and above his head, the great Vajradhara. Above his head are Samantabhadra and Samantabhadrā. In addition, the buddhas and bodhisattvas gather like clouds. Everywhere from the top of your head down to the soles of your feet is filled with vīras and ḍākinīs like a vast outpouring of sesame seeds. Consider that all the deities contribute to the spontaneous reverberation of mantra, and all the outer elements do the same. During the session settle in a state of indivisibility.

Secret Mantra Recitation

For this, visualize your own body as the great Vajradhara and consort, as you did earlier. Above your head is the root guru, indivisible from Padmasambhava of Oḍḍiyāna. Then imagine all the buddhas, bodhisattvas and lineage gurus gathered like clouds.

A blue hūṃ complete with five-coloured rays of light emerges from Samantabhadra’s heart, out of which a hūṃ travels upwards. Visualize a full moon disc in the heart of Vajrasattva at the crown. Then visualize a white hūṃ syllable upon the moon. Consider that the hūṃ rotates downwards,[3] so that all pores of the skin are filled with hūṃs. And in this way you visualise the continuous emanation and reabsorption of light rays.

This concludes the outer, inner and secret guru yoga.[4]

| Translated by Adam Pearcey with the generous support of the Tsadra Foundation, 2026.

Bibliography

Tibetan Edition

Anon. "bla ma’i rnal 'byor phyi nang gsang gsum" In snying thig ya bzhi. 13 vols. Delhi: Sherab Gyaltsen Lama, 1975. Vol. 11: 246–253 (4 folios)

Version: 1.0–2020716