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Dorje Khadro sadhana

(Vajra Daka) Fire offering

Abbey monastics and guests throwing sesame seeds into fire.
Sesame seeds being offered into the fire. (Photo by Sravasti Abbey)

Refuge and bodhicitta

I take refuge until I have awakened in the Buddhas, the Dharma and the Sangha. By the merit I create by engaging in generosity and the other far-reaching practices, may I attain Buddhahood in order to benefit all sentient beings. (3x)

Especially for the sake all mother sentient beings, I must quickly and more quickly—in this very life—attain the precious state of complete and perfect Buddhahood. Therefore, I shall make the burning offering to Dorje Khadro. (3x)

Meditation on emptiness

Om vajra amrita kundali hana hana hung pay
Om sobhawa shuda sarwa dharma sobhawa shudo hang

The fire becomes empty: that is, the incorrect, ordinary view of the fire as being truly existent disappears.

Generating Dorje Khadro in the fire

Within this emptiness of true existence, a blazing wisdom fire appears. At its center is HUM, which becomes a vajra marked by HUM. This transforms into the fierce deity, Dorje Khadro. He is deep blue, with one face and two hands, holding dorje and bell. He shows the mudra of divine wisdom (hung dze mudra). Wearing a crown of five skulls, he snarls into space, baring four great fangs. He is adorned by a necklace of fifty bleeding heads and wears a scanty tigerskin loin cloth. He is seated with his legs forming a circle, and his aspect is that of a powerful, magnificent destroyer of all negativities and obscurations. A white OM is at his crown, red AH at his throat, blue HUM at his heart.

From the HUM, light rays radiate out to invite the wisdom beings and empowering deities from their natural abodes.

Dza hum bam ho,

the wisdom beings and symbolic beings merge and become inseparable.

The empowering deities perform the empowerment and Dorje Khadro is crowned with Akshobya.

Offering and Praise

Om vajra daka sapari wara argham, (padyam, pupay, dupay, alokay, genday, niuday, shapta) prati tsa hung soha.

Akshobya Vajra, great wisdom, the vajra sphere of your mind is extremely wise. Your supreme three vajras of body, speech, and mind are the three mandalas. I bow to you, Melody of Secrets.

Visualization

I am in ordinary form. A black PAM, the syllable representing all my negativities, appears at my heart. At my navel, a red ram becomes a fire mandala. Beneath my feet, a blue yam becomes a blue wind mandala.

Light rays emanate from the PAM and draw forth all the negativities and obscurations of my three doors in the form of black rays. These absorb into the PAM.

Beneath my feet the blue wind mandala blows and blue wind rises up my legs. It fans the fire blazing at my navel. Flaming rays go up and chase the PAM out through my nose. The PAM then takes the form of a scorpion and absorbs into the sesame seeds.

These are offered to the mouth of Dorje Khadro while reciting:

om vajra daka kaka kahi kahi sarwa papam dahana bakmi kuru soha

(Recite the mantra as much as possible, throwing some sesame seeds into the fire as each mantra is said. Periodically, stop and say the following verse, and then return to the mantra recitation. Do this until all the sesame seeds have been offered.)

All the negativities and obscurations I have created and all commitments I have broken from beginningless lives are completely purified.

Offering and Praise

Om vajra daka sapari wara argham, (padyam, pupay, dupay, alokay, genday, niuday, shapta) prati tsa hung soha.

In the center of the blazing wisdom-fire stands the fierce dark-blue cannibal, Dorje Khadro. Just by remembering you, all afflictions and interferences are completely destroyed. To you, Dorje Khadro, I bow.

Remedying mistakes and departure of the wisdom beings

All the errors I have made through not finding or knowing or no capability, please be patient with all these.

The wisdom beings return to the ultimate nature from where they came, and the symbolic being, Dorje Khadro, transforms into a blazing fire.

Dedication

Due to this merit may I be taken care of by and never be separated from the Mahayana spiritual masters who show the infallible path. May I drink the nectar of their speech and not be satisfied by merely a few words.

Through the force of completing the practices of the determination to be free, bodhicitta, and the wisdom realizing emptiness, as well as the six far-reaching attitudes and the two tantric stages, may I quickly attain the state of a Buddha, having the ten faculties.

May I quickly attain Buddhahood and may my prayers be fulfilled through the inspiration of the spiritual masters who never betray us, the Triple Gem, and the truth of the intrinsically pure ultimate sphere of reality and infallible interdependence.

Venerable Thubten Chodron

Venerable Chodron emphasizes the practical application of Buddha’s teachings in our daily lives and is especially skilled at explaining them in ways easily understood and practiced by Westerners. She is well known for her warm, humorous, and lucid teachings. She was ordained as a Buddhist nun in 1977 by Kyabje Ling Rinpoche in Dharamsala, India, and in 1986 she received bhikshuni (full) ordination in Taiwan. Read her full bio.