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⚠️ Safety First ⚠️
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Before diving in head first, please understand the differences in risk associated and the recommendations, outlined below.
Historically, transmissions were given only in person, when teacher and student were in the same place, at the same time. Today, in this Kali Yuga, technology has sped up the pace and connectivity of the world and some Lamas have begun live-streaming their transmissions. This is an experiment to see if the connection can be made across distances.
These instructions include words and symbols, but they also include a telepathic, mind-to-mind component, known as a “wang” in Tibetan. This direct connection is essential to the student’s progress. Without it, only conceptual understanding arises in the student’s mind and this can actually act as a hinderance to further progress.
In addition to the hinderance of intellectualization, there are other practical risks to be aware of. Mantra (Tantra) and Chod work directly with the alchemy of raw emotions, energy, and mind. There will be inner upheavals, wacky meditative experiences (nyam), and extreme highs and lows. Please take this into consideration if you have a history of mental health issues or are experiencing significant emotional distress. This practice is not for everyone.
If the Sutra path is like hiking a trail up a mountain, then Mantra (Tantra) is like climbing a sheer rock wall – it is a direct route with many more pitfalls. THINGS CAN GO WRONG!
Go check out your local Bon or Buddhist center. Seek out an introductory class, attend Dharma talks, and engage the sangha (community). Then as you continue to do this, develop a relationship with a Bon teacher. Ask questions, and get personal instructions on your own practice of healing and transformation.
Recommendations:
Begin a relationship with a qualified and authentic teacher. A teacher can address pressing questions as they arise and give you a map and tools for the journey. As practitioners, we can rely on those who have hiked the trail before us.
Do not expect to travel this path guided only by books and the internet! Use the internet to find a teacher, then connect with them.
The responsibility to take care of your own mind rests with you; not the lama. So, take it upon yourself to be safe and use common sense.
With great power, comes great responsibility. In this case, the responsibility is to your own naturally luminous mind.
Each year, there is the annual Takla Mebar retreat during the month of December. It's a month-long retreat done for all of December ending at the new year. While we all can't fully commit to a full month away in retreat, we can do our best to participate and practice the Takla Mebar teachings and practices as much as we can at home during the month of December.
As we approach the beginning of the holiday season, our own family gatherings can be a minefield of suffering and fertilizer for the pernicious self. Diligence, vigilant introspection, and confidence need to be aroused. We need to generate a protection circle within our hearts. A protection circle to help us cut the binds of negativity within us that habitually chain us down and keep us from our true heart intention. For some, invoking the loving protection of Sherab Chamma, the supreme mother, might be enough to help us cut the binds, and dwell in mindfulness. But for others, the habitual landscape of the holidays can take much more energy and effort. And thankfully, Takla Mebar manifests to help energize and help us generate power to cut these karmic tendencies.
Takla Mebar means “Flaming Tiger” and he is called upon at the end of the year to burn up all our obscurations, karmic traces, and negative actions we have accumulated over the year. We use fire to burn it all up. In the evenings we can hold backyard bonfires with the family to sit beside and reflect. And the fire represents the emptiness which liberates all our obscurations. We do this to overcome negative forces and the personal, negative emotions and obstacles they create so we can begin the new year fresh and new. We can also practice with the natural element of fire if we know how. Meditation with fire can be found [here].
Through the realization of emptiness Takla Mebar (Flaming Tiger Deity) subjugated those evil forces of self-cherishing and self-grasping through his compassionate wisdom, transforming them into compassionate and peaceful beings.
Takla Mebar heals the outer poisons by transforming them into wisdom and positive aspects. The inner negativities are transformed into the clarity of the Five Wisdoms: the wisdom of emptiness, mirror-like wisdom, the wisdom of equality, discriminating wisdom, and all-accomplishing wisdom.
Retreat Preparations
To prepare your altar or spiritual retreat space, print out the mandala image and the image of Takla Mebar. Set the mandala flat with the Eastern direction (yellow) facing you. Place Takla Mebar on the mandala or slightly behind it. The mandala is the palace of Takla Mebar. Print out the image of the torma and place it next to the mandala on the altar. You don’t have to make a torma if you don’t know how. If you do know how, you can make the torma out of red playdoh, and accent it with white playdoh. This is a fun activity to do with children. You can also decorate pine cones in red and gold. Then print out the boundary (circular) mandala with the mantra to keep in front of yourself along with the sadhana text.
On the altar on the left side an offering of red or white wine. Red is more traditional. On the left is an offering of black tea. Place a spoon next to each. Set up a small empty offering cup in the center to be used during retreat. Set up incense for offerings too.
For setting up water offering bowls for chutor offerings, you don’t need anything expensive or traditional. You can just use seven small clean bowls, and one larger bowl. This larger bowl can be like a large soup bowl. Then you can put a small wine glass or tea cup in the center of the big bowl. Then around the big bowl, you can place the small seven bowls. Then put a spoon next to the bowls which will be used later.
You can also print out the Zhang Zhung syllable for the four kings and place them on your door and wall facing the four cardinal directions. They represent the four kings of Takla Mebar, the four gatekeepers or guards. One king has a lion head, another a bear head, another a dragon head, and the last a pig head. They protect us during our retreat, they keep external obstacles away. They also act as a visual sign letting people know that someone is retreating and meditating within this space, so please be quiet and respectful. It marks the entrance and boundary of a retreat space in your own home that can be honored and respected by the whole family.
Traditionally these are hung in the doorway decorated with branches of Juniper bound together with a bow. Feel free to make a beautiful holiday wreath using whatever plants are available for you.
Syllable of the Four Kings
Retreating While in Daily Life
While we all can't fully commit to a full month away in retreat, we can do our best to participate and practice the Takla Mebar teachings and practices as much as we can at home during the month of December. For this month-long retreat, while in our daily lives, just recite the mantra again and again as often as you can. It doesn't matter where you are. I'm sure most people are busy. I know this life is so busy, especially for westerners. So wherever you are, like working, walking, or whatever you do, just remember “I'm doing the Takla Mebar retreat for all this month.” Then just recite the Mantra. So you do not need to stay at home in solitude. If you can that's good, but if you cannot that's fine also. Even if you're driving somewhere just recite the mantra as you can. So whatever you do just remember you are doing this Takla Mebar retreat of course for ourselves, but also for all sentient beings. You think about your families, your friends, your coworkers, you sangha members all cutting their obscurations, distractions, and all the difficulties of the world. Remember that this fierce practice pacifies all negative emotions and activities of yourself and all beings. Remember the heart of compassion. We are working with a fierce mantra and fierce imagery, but it manifests through the compassionate heart mind. That is the most important part.
If you find yourself connecting deeply to Takla Mebar, you may take him as your Yidam year round. This retreat each December is a great way to come together with the sangha and recharge our connection with Takla Mebar.
In Bon tantra, the three objects of refuge are the lama, yidam, and khandro. The lamas are the masters or teachers. Yidam is made up of two words, “yi” which means mind or awareness and “dam” which means commitment or samaya of wisdom. Khandro means the dakini or sky dancers. Sometimes a fourth object appears, the Rigdzins or “awareness holders” which are great yogis.
Takla Mebar is a yidam. Yidam means the commitment of the awareness, or commitment of the mind. Here commitment means a relationship. Much like being in a committed relationship. What are we in relationship with? We are in a committed relationship with our own empty awareness, our own nature of mind. This awareness is our innate great open heartedness, sky like nature of mind. Thus our own open-hearted awareness is the central focus of this retreat.
There are many, many yidams – as well as lamas, khandros, and rigdzins. But there are five main yidams. These five are the manifestations of the Buddha Tonpa Shenrab. They are the body of Buddha Tonpa Shenrab, the speech of Buddha Tonpa Shenrab, the mind of Buddha Tonpa Shenrab, the quality of Buddha Tonpa Shenrab, and the activities of Buddha Tonpa Shenrab. These are often called the five activities of the Buddha, or the five Buddha families.
Buddha Tonpa Shenrab manifested as the yidam deity, Trowo Tsochok – the embodiment of Enlightened Mind. Trowo Tsochok manifested as several different yidams – some peaceful, some fierce, some masculine, some feminine– one of which is Takla Mebar. This manifestation of Takla Mebar was a manifestation of the heart – the Buddha’s wisdom and compassion.
Each of the many yidams has a different purpose. Takla Mebar’s purpose is subjugation which means conquering negativities with compassion. Whereas in Dzogchen the main purpose is through self liberation, here in Tantra, we are transforming through conquering negativities through compassion. It is through this compassion that negativities such as obstacles and bad karma are transformed. When the Buddha was met with distractions and obstacles in his meditation he would manifest as Takla Mebar in order to subjugate them with compassion to bring them onto the path. It was through this practice that Takla Mebar became a yidam.
When distractions, obstacles, adversity, and negativities arise in your own meditation how do you manifest?
How do you manifest in relation to the body?
How do you manifest in relation to your speech (outer and inner self-talk)?
How do you manifest in relation to your mind (thoughts, feelings, and perceptions)?
How do you manifest in relation to your activities on the cushion?
What are the qualities that you give rise to when you meet adversity in your meditation practice?
When distractions, obstacles, adversity, and negativities arise in your own daily life how do you manifest?
How do you manifest in relation to the body?
How do you manifest in relation to your speech (outer and inner self-talk)?
How do you manifest in relation to your mind (thoughts, feelings, and perceptions)?
How do you manifest in relation to your activities in daily life and in relationship to others?
What are the qualities that you give rise to when you meet adversity in daily life?
Over the course of the retreat we will begin to explore our own relationship with our great open-hearted awareness and how connecting with and strengthening this relationship can help us to heal and transform along the path. The retreat will culminate at the end of the month with the New Years celebration. See the page below for more information on how to practice for the New Years.
Daily Instructions
Start each morning of retreat with the Tsa Lung Prayer followed by the nine purification breaths and the five Tsa Lung Thul Khor exercises. Next do Sang (purification offering) and Chutör (water offering) in the morning session and Sur (burnt food offering) and Chöd (offering of the body) in the evening session after dark. An alternative practice routine is to focus on one of each of the four offerings (Sang, Chutor, Sur and Chod) for one week each of the four weeks of retreat. So the first week is sang, week two is chutor, week three is sur, and the last week is chod practice.
The first day, set up your altar, make offerings and do the practice of establishing a boundary. We should do the boundary practice every day of retreat.
For the first week of the retreat, practice the full long sadhana in the morning and then simply recite the main Takla Mebar mantra “SO! HÉ RAM MA HA NÉ RAM TRO TA RAM RA YO DZA! DAK DANG KHOR LA RAK SHA SUNG SHIK” as much as you can throughout the day. Let the mantra be your connection to your own great open-hearted empty awareness.
For the second week, continue to practice the sadhana in the morning, using either the long or the short sadhana. The long sadhana is better if you are on retreat and have the time to dedicate to practice, and the short sadhana is better suited if you have less time in the morning. It is better to do the short sadhana then to feel rushed or anxious trying to practice the long sadhana. During this second week, focus deeply on the practice of establishing a boundary, and the visualization of the protection spheres. You can continue to recite the main Takla Mebar mantra as much as you can or you can move to reciting the second of the four Takla Mebar mantras, the protection mantra.
For week three, continue practicing the same way: daily sadhana practice, the four generosities, and reciting the main mantra as much as you can. Also you can start reciting the retinues mantra in addition to the main mantra. Additionally, spend time focusing on the threefold contemplation practice.
As the month long retreat comes to a close, we can do the Takla Mebar Tsok celebration. We can review the meaning of tsok [here]. We may already be holding family gatherings and shared meals for Yule, Christmas, or New Year's and we can just bring our tsok practice into our already existing family traditions. For more information on how our family celebrates Yule, you can check out the link [here]. And finally, you can go to the New Year's Celebration link below for more in-depth instructions on how to practice for the last days of this retreat (such as Dokpa practice, Takla Mebar Dance, and many others) closing out the practice by bringing in the new year.
Why Do We Do Tantric Practice?
We engage in generation stage practice because of our deep-seated attachment to the idea that our world has true, inherent existence. We believe that all the phenomena of this world, and the elements that comprise them, exist just as we perceive them, and we have ordinary attachment to them. We don't recognize their true nature because we are attached to our ordinary concepts of what things appear to be. We don't recognize that the five elements are the five consorts and that our own nature is the deity. We don't see our dwelling place as the celestial palace and our environment as the pure land and all the living beings as male and female deities. We are very attached to our belief that this world and the beings inhabiting it have actual, true, permanent existence.
Why is Takla Mebar Wrathful?
This can be scary, off putting, and even seemingly at odds with the imagery of Buddha’s compassion. How does this wrathful imagery help our own transformation? The idea is that Takla Mebar is subjugating our own ego-grasping. Our ego-grasping is our main obstacle that Takla Mebar subjugates. Thus his wrathful stare is not facing us, but towards our ego-grasping itself which is an obstacle for us on the path of healing and transformation. Towards all the mental formations such as doubt, anger, delusion, and so forth which prevent us from transformation. This is the way of tantra also called the way of transformation. In which slowly, slowly, over time we heal and transform. Every action, practice, and ritual we do on the path of tantra is in service of cutting our ego of anger, attachment and delusion in order to heal and transform.
If you feel that this practice does not make a lot of sense, that is the perfect way for understanding the teachings – it does not make sense. Leave trying to make sense of things for your mundane samsaric activities. For Tantra, abide in “it doesn’t make sense.” When you abide in “it doesn’t make sense” then you will receive benefits. When the practice makes sense to you, then you are simply using your conceptual thinking – which is deluded by samsaric delusion.
Just try the practice. Don’t feel “I want to do perfect every time.” We all think that. But reality doesn’t go that way. There is no way of perfection. We practice by falling down and getting back up. We fall down, and we get back up. This is how we practice. Just listen to the teachings, and try the best we can. After practice, pray and feel, “I did the best I could.” Pray to the wisdom yidam Takla Mebar “Please bless and guide me. I fall down, but I will continue to get back up.”
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