Kurukulle

Her name is Rikjema—the female cause of awareness, life force, urge to merge, lust, bodhicitta, vitality. Kurukulle is an antidote to ignorance. She is the source of awareness. Kurukulle is part of the Mother Tantra, considered a form of Tara.

Since enlightenment is the natural state it actually requires effort to avoid enlightenment. Kurukulle is the symbol of the magnetism of the enlightened state. Since the enlightened state is completely natural you just roll into it; once you finally learn to stop making all that effort to avoid it.

The urge to merge, the red and white, come together at the heart chakra. Mind being sky, sky as a symbol of mind. And yet the sky itself is alive with the light of vitality which is mind without separation.

Why do the red and white come together? This is love. The love of form for emptiness for it wishes to penetrate and dissolve within that. Oh gentlemen, do you not? The love of emptiness for form which wishes to be encompassed and penetrated, decorated, and made real. Ladies do you not?

This urge that even the bugs feel. The only thing that doesn't feel it is foot fungus. No urge to merge there. Even the bugs in your gut wanna get together. But it is not "this man" and "this woman," these "two men" these" two women," "this triad" or this "group." It's not those specifics. Follow it home. Follow your generative sex drive home to the urge. As form to fire all of your guns at once and blast off into space dissolving destruction open infinite awareness. Pow!

Encompass the form, the delight, the sensory delight of all matter. Its function, its touch, its awareness. Love it! Color, taste, smell. Encompass & embrace; take within yourself all of the dance of infinity. Ride the chakra four fingers below your navel. Ride it to the union of method and wisdom. Ride it beyond the beyond. This is love opened wide to the universe; instead of narrowed and constricted and distorted by aiming it at one poor sucker. You really don't want to do that! 

Love it all. Don't follow confusedly by the action without the meaning. No, do it here in the heart chakra. Bring the red fire and the white seed together. Allow that union of method and wisdom, of bodhicitta and emptiness, of the dance of stillness. Do your practice as it is; whichever it is; kyrim or dzogrim at this time or bounce between the two as the inclination strikes you. But remember, to allow infinite open awareness to open wide embracing bodhichitta. Allow bodhichitta, open-hearted great-heartedness to open wide embracing and being embraced by shunyata; and the two concepts dissolve into open awareness. And that's who you really are.

A practitioner of Kurukulle will develop the real bodhisattva nature. They will cultivate the six paramitas. As a result of becoming more and more generous, people will be drawn to them. As a result of becoming more and more honest, people will respect them. It all ties into the paramitas. Kurukulle’s magnetizing function is the magnetizing of enlightenment—of the beyond—which pulls all beings out of suffering.

There are two fundamental energies at play. One is the survival instinct—the part of you that tries to keep you away from enlightenment because you're terrified you'll vanish into it. (You won’t, by the way—but it can feel like you might.) The other energy is the same energy as bodhicitta—the same as sexual attraction when it’s not twisted by desire or aversion. It’s the urge to merge, the capacity to love.

Think about it: a mother’s love for her child can override her survival instinct if the child is in danger. Or consider how a young, horny guy might do something incredibly reckless just to impress someone—that’s the same overriding force at work.

These are all expressions of the same magnetism—the magnetism of enlightenment, the draw of true refuge.

So when you practice Kurukulle, her magnetism represents that pull toward awakening—not toward separation, but toward union with the real. She’s not a tool to get you stuff. She’s a reminder of what draws you to something deeper than the self.

This is tantra. A sadhana is an imaginative exercise which, through repetition, brings you closer and closer to recognizing your own true nature. It bypasses the intellect and teaches through the subconscious using symbols.

You do have to do the sadhana in Tibetan. That’s where the magic is. There aren’t words in other languages for most of it. It’s possible to do the sadhana in English, but it may not be as effective.

Just start with whatever part you can do and let it grow from there. Start with the mantra. Do the mantra for a while with whatever visualization you can manage. Then maybe do the first page of the sadhana. Eventually, work your way up through the full text.

If you don’t have a dorje and bell, just learn the hand mudras—they're kind of fun. Play with it. Don’t take it all so seriously—or yourself so seriously.

You can do this once a day or a couple of times a week, depending on your lifestyle. It’s not vital to perform the full sadhana every day (though I recommend it for fastest results). Even just the mantra will be effective. For best results, do it daily—or at least a few times a week.

You can recite the mantra and do the visualization while walking around. But it’s good to do the full sadhana from time to time to keep it fresh. There are aspects of the sadhana visualization you’ll forget otherwise.

On those days when you don’t have time for the full sadhana, just do the mantra. If you're really pressed, just do a few mantras—three is usually considered the minimum.  Practice the text when you can.

The practice commitment is Bodhicitta. Do your best. That’s your commitment. At the end, if possible, spend as much time resting in the natural state of mind as you did doing the sadhana. That’s the important part.

The actual practice is about training the mind. The practices and trainings build up slowly one after another. There are a lot of visualizations. But we will learn them and practice them step by step. It is very difficult to visualize clearly and properly. Do not be overwhelmed but remember we are learning. We are going slowly, slowly, step by step. Don’t worry about perfection. If you fixate on trying to do it perfectly there will be a lot of conceptual thoughts and ruminations about the practice. Whatever our practice is, it’s okay. Wherever we are on the path, it’s okay. We are in samsara, so we should not have expectations about perfection. Here in samsara we need to take care of ourselves. To put ourselves on the right path. We need to keep our mind trained on what we need to focus on, what we need to practice. We are very fortunate to have a mind that can do so much. Materials and minerals have no mind. But we have a mind. This is why we are giving training to our mind. This mind that we have may be very poorly trained. This mind may have a lot of suffering. Not only suffering from this life but past lives too. Having lived through so many bodily forms in the past such as animals, birds, and hungry ghosts, here today we have a precious human body and mind. Now we need to train our mind. This is the only way. Other sentient beings may not have this good fortune. They may not have the chance to train the mind. Or their mind may not be suitable for training. But this precious human body has a mind. A mind capable of training and transformation that can lead us to understanding our own true nature.

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, feel, “I did the best I could.” Our goal is simply to try our best. We may not see the benefits immediately, but the benefits are within us and are there. Even if the benefits cannot be seen by the thinking mind. The most important thing is to understand the reality of ourselves -- who and what we really are.

The main point of all of this is that we need to understand ourselves. We need to know the causes and conditions that bring together all of what we call ourselves. The causes that bring benefit and the causes that bring suffering. All of these teachings help us to gain a little bit more understanding of what it means to be human.

What you will need:

You will need a dorje, a bell, a mala, damaru drum, and a bumpa with a peacock feather in the top. If you don’t have a bumpa, you can make one out of a teapot with saffron water inside. If you don’t have a peacock feather you can use any non-poisonous plant, placed upside down in the top of your teapot, without the lid on. Peacocks are said to eat poison and transform it into their beautiful colors—they are a specific symbol of transmutation. That said, you can do this practice with just the mudras, even without the dorje and bell. Your damaru goes in your right hand, your dorje in your right hand, and your bell in your left hand.

Make a small altar. Put red cloth (or any color), on top the mandala sits, then a picture of kurukulle right on the mandala. In front of the picture, the Torma — actual or a picture.  In front of the mandala, a candle, incense, water bowl, red fruit and honey on plate, and red flowers.

Commentary of the Sadhana

Sādhana of Red Kurukulle from the Jewel Garland of Sādhanas

By Rigdzin Chökyi Dragpa

We begin with the mantra: OM SHU NYA TA DZA NA BEN ZA SWA BHA WA AT MA KO HAM. These don't translate directly, but the meaning points to the unbreakable emptiness of reality—unshakable emptiness. It brings that to your awareness.

“All phenomena included within the grasped objects and grasping subjects of phenomena and their natures naturally become the very nature of the sublime blissful luminosity of great emptiness.”

All phenomena is all thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. The very nature of sublime, blissful luminosity, the great emptiness isis what they’ve always been. They have never been anything else.

“From the state of emptiness, in the center of a vast protection wheel upon the center of a red lotus and corpse on a sun seat is the red syllable Hṛīḥ. From that arises a red lotus with its pistil marked by a red Hṛīḥ.”

The state of emptiness  is the natural state of all things. The vast wheel of protection is the eight-spoked Wheel of Dharma, which protects sentient beings from their own confusion and foibles. Red symbolizes magnetism. The lotus represents primordial purity. This symbolizes the innate magnetic pull of enlightenment on all sentient beings.

In the fullness of the fourth time, all sentient beings arise as all Buddhas. Your enlightenment is inevitable, because you’ve already entered the magnetic field of this energy, Kurukulle. Kurukullé—the red lotus of primordial purity—is innate and natural, and it has its own gravitational, magnetic pull.

On a corpse—this symbolizes the death of illusion. The corpse Kurukulle stands on symbolizes foolishness and obscurations—the "troublesome son" of the Buddha. She stands upon the dead obscurations that block your path. On a sun seat—the sun represents the innate clear light of emptiness, just as the moon symbolizes bodhicitta. The red syllable, Hṛīḥ — this is the seed syllable of Amitabha, of the western direction, associated with passion. The pistils are the heart, the essence, its fertility.

“Light emanates from that fulfilling the two benefits”

The light is red—but all colors are contained in the red. It holds all possible shades. There are several ways of understanding this —the benefit to self and the benefit to others, or the benefit in this relative world, and the benefit of absolute enlightenment.

“Light emanates from that fulfilling the two benefits, gathers back, and fully transforms myself into Kurukulle, who is red like a mountain of rubies.”

After fulfilling the two benefits throughout the universe, the light gathers back into the Hrih on the pistils, and transforms me into that Hrih. I am the Hrih. The Hrih is my mind. And it transforms into Kurukulle. Red like a mountain of rubies — It is a dark red. Marpo is dark red with a bit of blue in it.

“She is dancing with her right leg drawn up. She is endowed with the youth of a sixteen-year-old. Her crimson hair streams upwards.”

She is dancing with her right leg drawn up — this is the posture of activity. She is endowed with the youth of a woman entering her prime. Her crimson hair streams upward — a symbol that she obeys no laws of man. She is not tamed. Men want a tame woman. She is not that. Oh, you think you want a wild one — but you don’t really. You're scared of them. She is the wild woman — not owned, not controlled by any laws, or anyone. This is the meaning of the crimson hair rising.

According to the text, she is listed as 16 years old. In our culture, that seems too young. Nonetheless, 16 is a magical number — it is 4 squared.  And 4 is a magical number: the four continents, the four limbs — it’s the number of the human pattern, of Homo sapiens.

“Above her head the five Buddhas reside as a crown of five dry skulls. She has a necklace of fifty-one fresh heads.“

Above her head, the Five Buddhas reside, forming a crown of five dried bone skulls. She has a necklace of 51 fresh heads — they symbolize the 51 human emotions: dead of their stickiness, but still juicy, still raw.

“Her fangs are bared and her tongue is curled.”

Her fangs are bared, her tongue curled. The tip touches the spot just behind the top front teeth — this connects the yin and yang channels of the body.

 “Her three round red eyes look to the left. She possesses a mood of wrath and seduction.”

Her three round red eyes look to the left. Left is the female side — the side of shunyata, of wisdom. She holds a mood of both ferocity and seduction. Imagine that. Be that.

“She wears the five bone ornaments.”

She wears the five bone ornaments: bracelets, earrings, necklace, belt, and a circular ring at the top of her head, caught in her hair. Her five bone ornaments relate to the Five Perfections, while she herself embodies the sixth perfection — that of wisdom. We’re talking about the pāramitās here.

Her necklace of heads are dripping blood.  She’s wearing anklets and bracelets — counted as one. These show that the outer is the inner. The four continents are the four limbs It refers to the inner mandala.

The circle on top of her head refers to the interconnectivity of all things. Her bone necklace reflects the patterns of the charnel grounds and the demons. Indeed, she is surrounded as her mandala is the Eight Great Charnel Grounds of India.

Fierce female deities wear bone ornaments. The bone ring at the top of her head represents the wisdom of the basic space of phenomena, the interconnectivity of all things. The bone necklace symbolizes the wisdom of equality. The bone earrings represent discerning wisdom, while the bone bracelets signify mirror-like wisdom. The belt symbolizes all-accomplishing wisdom. So, her five bone ornaments embody the five wisdoms of the Dhyani Buddhas, which reside as her crown.

“Of her main two hands, her right hand holds a bow of red flowers and her left hand nocks a red lotus bud tipped arrow on the string of the bow pulled back to her ear.”

She has a bow of red flowers, and in her right hand, a red lotus-bud-tipped arrow. The bow and arrow are important in Tibetan symbolism — they represent intent. The intent to enlightenment.

The arrow is the archer. When you study Tibetan archery you learn: you are the bow, and you are the arrow, and you are the target. This symbolizes that the doer, the deed, and the done are non-separate. And when you truly realize that,  your arrow hits the center of the target every time —  from any distance, regardless of wind — because you are the arrow, and you are the target.

In the Hindu archetypes — or deities — from which Kurukullé springs,  the bowstring is made of bees. In the Tibetan pantheon, she is simply surrounded by bees —  bees who protect the honey. She is the honey.

Garlands of flowers symbolize the karmic interconnectivity of rebirth, of renewal —  life again and again, without a gap — strung together like a necklace:  a string of lives experienced by sentient beings. But no more real than any of this.

“Her right lower hand holds a red lotus iron hook. Her left lower hand holds a red lasso adorned by lotuses.”

She is four-armed. In her lower right hand, she holds an iron hook — it catches, hooks, draws in. In her lower left, she holds a red lasso —  it binds what is brought in. Both are adorned with lotuses.

“Her self-radiance emanates light garlands of a hundred thousand suns. By this, the eight great charnel grounds come to fully surround her.”

Her radiance emanates light garlands — I’ve already explained the meaning of garlands — of a hundred thousand suns, impossibly bright. By this, the Eight Great Charnel Grounds in the eight directions come fully to surround her.

The Eight Great Charnel Grounds is your mandala that you visualize around. They’re surrounded by great trees, which represent the central channel of the practitioner. The charnel ground itself represents the complete paths of sutra and tantra.

The four kinds of corpses which inhabit it:

• Fresh corpses represent cyclic existence: the sufferings of birth, old age, sickness, and death.

• Impaled, hanging, dismembered, and decaying corpses symbolize the death of the ego.

• Skeletons represent emptiness.

• Zombies or mindless corpses symbolize selflessness. There are many teachings where you’re supposed to act like a corpse. That’s the symbolism here.

The devouring wild animals symbolize the realization of the generation stage. The animals desire to devour the corpses of ordinary appearances and perceptions.

Lakes and bodies of water symbolize relative bodhicitta, which is a feeling, and water is the element of feelings. The clouds above are the white drops that tingle at the crown of the head, symbolizing the life force of bodhicitta. The fires of the charnel grounds represent the inner heat of Tummo. 

The directional protectors symbolize the downward voiding wind, located below the navel, which controls male orgasms. To some extent it is the abiding or the upward flowing wind involved in female orgasms. There's a slight difference between men and women: guys feel a draining sensation during orgasm, while for women, it’s more of a drawing in, going up. When the two together synergize, they create the circle.

This downward wind, when distorted by ego, manifests as fears, worries, and anxiety. When it’s not distorted by ego and functions normally, it manifests as joy and pleasure.

The realm of the protectors symbolizes the life-supporting wind, located at the heart. This is the life force stored in the central channel—your Jing, in Chinese medicine. You have a certain amount that you’re born with, and that’s it. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. As you get older, you can feel it diminishing.

When this life force malfunctions, it becomes closed-mindedness and self-focusedness, manifesting as “I, me, I, me, I, me.” When it’s in harmony, it’s the pure energy of life force, manifesting as bodhicitta.

The mountains around it symbolize immovable meditative equipoise, zhine. The stupas within the charnel ground represent the attainment of the three kayas. The nagas in the bodies of water symbolize the cultivation of the six paramitas. The gems held by the nagas represent the four ways of gathering disciples: traditionally, through generosity, kind speech, encouragement, and by living what you preach—setting an example.

The yogans and yoginis inhabiting these spaces are the practitioners at the level of upholding the tantric samayas. The vidyadharas, the wisdom holders of the human and god realms, are practitioners who have realized the generation stage and entered the completion stage. These are your fellow Dzogchen practitioners. The mahasiddhas are those who have realized the completion stage.

Her mandala, in the four cardinal directions, has each of the charnel grounds within it. In the eight corner directions, each charnel ground contains all of this as well. Above her head is Kuntuzangpo & Kuntuzangmo, primordial buddhahood, symbolizing all Buddhas of the four times. Below her feet are the three realms of desire, form, and formlessness. She dances beyond time and space, and her mandala dances as her.

“At the foreheads of the deities are white Oṃ syllables. At their throats are red Aḥ syllables. At their heart-centers are blue Hūṃ syllables. From these three, multicolored light rays emanate and invite the assembly of primordial wisdom beings and empowerment deities to the space in front.”

At the foreheads of the deities is the white Om. These are the enlightened deities, the initiation deities, resembling the Dhyani Buddhas and their consorts. The Om symbolizes the form of all Buddhas. At their throats, the red Ah symbolizes the intent or speech of all Buddhas. At their heart centers, there is the blue Hung, which symbolizes the mind of all Buddhas. From these three come multicolored lights of the rainbow—clear light fragmented by aliveness into the multicolored lights of phenomena.

That’s your symbol: the multicolored lights of the rainbow emanating and inviting the assembly of primordial wisdom beings and empowering deities into the space in front of you. 

Then, you make offerings:

“OM BEN ZA _____ TRA TIT SHA SO HA

[ PUSH PE / DHU PE / A LO KE / GEN DHE / NEW ID YA ]”

Om Benza which means “Admantine form of” Arg ham “water to drink”, Pad yam “water to wash”, Push pe “flowers”, Dhu pe “incense”, A lo ke “butter lamps”, Gen dhe “perfume / massage oil”, New id ya “food”, and Shap da “music” – this is where you offer music with the bell and drum.

It's done in a short way there for the initiation deities, who resemble the Dhyani Buddhas and their consorts.

You don’t do the full Sapariwara on this first offering—you just go through them. You can do the full one if you want for practice; that’s your choice. 

“DZA HUNG BAM HO SA MA YA STAM OM AH HUNG”

DZA HUNG BAM HO makes it happen—it’s the mantra. Samaya means the bond exists, the relationship exists. It is so. It is done. The relationship is there. From the OM AH HUNG due to the primordial wisdom beings and their commitment, they become non-dual. The commitment of all Buddhas to enlightenment—all Buddhas, who have actually arisen from, and are, all sentient beings at different points in time, outside of time. They are utterly committed to their own enlightenment, which is the enlightenment of all life, because they aren't separate. There’s no separation between Buddhahood and the commitment to enlightenment. "For Thus Gone" means Buddha, and "to thus go" is the commitment of the Thus Gone who have gone. Do you see how it simply is non-dual? 

“By praying to the empowerment deities, OM SAR WA TA THA GA TA AH BHI SHE KA TA SA MA A SHRI YE HUNG, the empowerment deities holding precious vases filled with streams of nectar bestow the empowerment:

OM SAR WA TA THA GA TA AH BHI SHE KA TA SA MA YA SHRI YE HUNG”

That’s where you invite the bell—it’s an emphasis. By praying to the empowerment deities. And that’s the mantra of the empowerment deities, holding precious vases filled with streams of nectar and empowerment. The bumpa is the symbol. Touch the bumpa to the crown chakra. Then take a sip of saffron water—or any other blessed water you’ve prepared.

“The nectar fills the body and purifies defilements. The excess liquid overflows and becomes a crown of the five families with the presiding family of the deity in the center. The empowerment deities dissolve into me. Thus visualize.”

As you do that and recite the mantra, visualize the nectar filling your body and purifying all defilements. It pours in through the crown chakra. The excess overflows and becomes a crown of the five families, with the presiding family of the deity in the center. That means the five Dhyani Buddhas, with Amitabha in the center, because this is the Hrih of the western direction where Buddha Amitabha resides.

“OM SAR WA TA THA GA TA KU RU KU LE SA PA RI WA RA _______ PRA TIT SHA SO HA

[ ARG HAM / PAD YAM / PUSH PE / DHU PE / A LO KE / GEN DHE / NEW ID YA / SHAP DA ]”

The same offerings are made again.You understand these offerings—they’re the same ones as the bowls on your altar. You might wish to keep a Maha Anuttara Tantra altar, which has two rows of bowls instead of just one. Red flowers and red fruit are traditional when you’re working with Kurukulla as a yidam.

You, the offerer, and you, Kurukulla—the recipient of the offerings—are non-dual.

“In the heart center upon a lotus and moon is Hṛīḥ, the seed syllable of the deity. Around it is a red mantra garland, the color of the deity. As it circles, light emanates. This makes offerings to all the Buddhas and bodhisattvas and gathers their blessings. It purifies the negative deeds and obscurations of all the sentient beings of the three realms and establishes them in the state beyond sorrow. It accomplishes all the enlightened activities. The light gathers back and dissolves into the mantra garland together with the seed syllable.”

In the heart center, upon a lotus mentioned earlier, The moon is both a symbol of bodhicitta and the seed syllable of the deity: Hrih.  Western direction. Seed of Amitabha. Passion as compassion. Around it, a red mantra garland, the color of the deity—marpo—circles counterclockwise. This makes offerings to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and gathers their blessings. It purifies negative deeds and obscurations of all sentient beings in the three realms.

The light goes out from the mala, from the mantra. It establishes them all beyond sorrow. It accomplishes all enlightened activities.  The light comes back in—it gathers into the mantra garland and the seed syllable.  It goes out and in at the same time—because out and in are not separate.

Then you say the mantra with the mala for as long as you wish.

OM KU RU KU LE HRI SO HA

When you’re done reciting the mantra and visualizing the light going out and in—not out then in, but out and in— Three dimensions, not flat. Four dimensions: through time as well. Five dimensions: into the macro and microcosm. Six dimensions: into the dreamtime. As many dimensions as you personally can imagine. Send it out and in, from and to them all. There’s no separation here.

“The primordial wisdom beings depart to their natural abode.”

When you’re done with the mantra, the primordial wisdom beings depart to their natural abode without leaving your natural state.

“The commitment being together with the vessel and contents become the naturally pure non-conceptual emptiness of the essence of the innate great bliss of luminosity. Visualizing that, evenly rest.”

That is not explainable. Feel it. And here you rest in the natural state for as long as you can. When you are done, you dedicate the merits at the end:

“By this merit, may all sentient beings of the three realms swiftly attain the primordial wisdom of the Tathagatas. So be it.”

That’s the sādhana. It is deep. It is profound. And it is thorough.