Takla Mebar Offerings

Invitation

The invitation prayer can be chanted. And you can use the drum here if you want. This prayer invites Takla Mebar to sit on the mandala on our altar. Then having Takla Mebar on our altar, we now have an object of refuge to bow and prostrate to.

Up to this point we have established the boundary, visualized the boundary mandala through the SO syllable and ourselves as Takla Mebar. Now we will confidently invite Takla Mebar in front of us. There are two aspects or ways to do an invitation. One way is to invite Takla Mebar into ourselves so we become Takla Mebar. The other way is to invite Takla Mebar in front of us or to our altar/shrine in order to offer tsok offerings to. To do this we recite the following prayer with a drum:

“SO! Since the beginning of cosmic time, the divine castle was disturbed by a mass of flames. Within a sphere of nine flaming weapons, is an aggressive, wrathful, majestic king taming negativities. The body of the fierce Takla Mebar Having great splendor with radiating lights of red flames, with a superior exalted mind, powerful speech and an illuminated body. Inconceivable number of retinues, are surrounding eighteen great wrathful deities destroying the powerful fields of obstacles, and liberating the enemy spirits. You are powerful; there is no match or competition. In order to protect the Yungdrung Bon teachings, with compassionate commitments, we invite you to abide here in our mandala. From within the nature of Bon, the form of empty luminosity, is the essence of existence itself. We ask you to come quickly with powerful compassion.

SO SA MA YA DZA DZA OM HE”

Refuge & Prostrations

With Takla Mebar having taken a seat on the mandala on the altar, we can prostrate to Takla Mebar. We recite the prostration prayer without a bell or drum. This is the practice of taking refuge.

We can chant without instruments the following:

“SO! To the wrathful Takla Mebar and his retinue, myself and infinite sentient beings prostrate with our bodies, speech, and mind, with contemplation and single minded devotion, to the great wrathful Bön deity full of splendor. I go for refuge with pure prostrations. Takla Mebar with a forbidding body and exalted speech, terrifies the three realms. And liberates all into the great mind. To Takla Mebar with an enlightened body, speech and mind, we are going for refuge with pure prostrations. To the retinues of tens of millions, to tame unworthy arrogance, we go for refuge with pure prostrations.

SO HÉ HÉ NA MA”

Request to Remain

Having gone for refuge we pray to request Takla Mebar to sit and remain with us. We request Takla Mebar and his enlightened qualities to remain with us by chanting without instruments the following:

“SO! Since the beginning of cosmic time, from the flaming fire, in the divine castle, the rays of light absorb into oneself. We invite you to look upon the evil entities in order to liberate them. Please sit in the center of our sphere with your weapons. We ask you to sit and liberate all evil deities.

SO! OM SA MA YA TI TA LHEN”

Confession

Here you can pray without a drum to confess to Takla Mebar who we imagine on our altar.

“Homage to the retinue and previous knowledge holders. Together with the principal and highest supreme yidam deity and his retinue, to the great body of the wrathful tiger deity, please pay attention to me and all practitioners. I, and those like me, are in crisis during this dark age. During times of suffering, happiness has not been experienced. We are not liberated from the depths of samsara. With compassion radiating from your great supreme wisdom eye, please show us your secret perfect face. 

From beginningless lifetimes, until now in this human lifetime, naturally grasping at the illusion of appearances, following worldly wealth and fame, practicing the afflictive emotions of mistaken illusion, whose actions are those of non-virtuous deeds and obscurations, we confess in front of the deity and great master. Please accept our confessions and bless us with the accomplishment, the victory of the great king, the wrathful tiger deity. 

From the very beginning of emptiness, you have had a pristine wisdom body. However, ourselves having the illusions of the skin body, Whatever non-virtuous actions that we have committed out of ignorance, we confess the broken samaya of the body. Please accept our confessions and bless us with the accomplishment. 

The supreme and splendorous speech of Takla Mebar, you are the speech of the pristine wisdom of unceasing Buddha. I am speechless as my speech cannot match yours of the unceasing Buddha. Whatever the misbehaviors of our speech have been such as harsh words and gossiping, we confess the broken samaya of speech. Please accept our confessions and bless us with the siddhi. 

Supreme and luminous mind of Takla Mebar, your mind is primordially lucid and omniscient; Whereas, we are bound with ignorance and illusion. Thus, my mind diverts towards misconduct. We confess the broken samaya of the mind. Please accept our confession and bless us with the siddhi. 

We offer our confessions of body, speech and mind. Please bestow on us the siddhi of body, speech and mind. Please show your pristine wisdom, wrathful deity face at this moment. You are the victorious wrathful deity endowed with the body of excellent qualities and deeds. 

Whereas I, the practitioner, do not possess any meaningful or excellent qualities. There might be afflictions due to negative forces, or misconduct such as engaging in the act of helping enemies. We confess in front of the Walshen (wrathful shen) Takla Mebar. Please accept our confession and bless us with the siddhi. 

Moreover, the practitioners like myself who are influenced by ignorance and illusion, utilize the teachings, transmission and instructions incorrectly and procrastinate the timely offering into months and years, not reciting the mantra and heart-essence according to the scriptures. Therefore, we confess going against the teachings of Yungdrung Bon. Please accept our confessions and bless us with the siddhi.”

Offerings

This is not the Tsok offering, which is found later in the full sadhana. This is the ngondro/preliminary offering. There are several different offerings. We offer them from ourselves, the practitioner Takla Mebar to the wisdom Takla Mebar in front of us on the altar. For the outer offerings, we can sprinkle pure water on them at this time. You don’t need to do the offering mandala like in ngondro, instead you can do the mudras for each of the four directions – East/Yungdrung, North/Wheel, West/Lotus, and South/Jewel. You can offer a torma of food, wine/whiskey and tea. For the inner offerings, we use three elements (wind, fire, and water) to purify our obscurations so our inner offerings are pure. 

Torma offerings represent offering the flesh, and the tea offering represents offering blood. We never offer real flesh/meat and blood. Buddha Tonpa Shenrab stated to not use real flesh and blood, but only use symbolic offerings. Why do we offer the flesh and blood? The reason we offer these is to cut our negativities. Our anger is connected to our bones. Our ignorance is connected to our flesh. Our attachment is connected to our blood. So by offering our bones, flesh, and blood we are cutting away, giving away, or purifying our anger, ignorance, and attachment – our three inner egos. This is why there are three different offerings, outer, inner, and blood. The outer offering gives away our anger. The inner offering gives away our ignorance, and the blood offering gives away our attachment. Takla Mebar doesn’t really want our tea and wine.These are just a representation of subjugating and purifying our own negativities.

Wine/Whiskey Offering

We start by visualizing Takla Mebar in front of us on our altar. Then we visualize Takla Mebar in our heart in which wind, fire, and water flows forth and washes over the offerings, cleaning and purifying them. We can hold up our offerings above our head, or simply place them beautifully on the altar as we imagine these elements arising.

“Arranging nine kinds of offering substances and receiving blessings

Visualize oneself from the Walbon (wrathful Bön) Takla Mebar’s heart. Radiating YANG RAM MANG DRUM from ཡཾ YANG, wind appears. From རཾ RAM, fire appears. From མཾ MANG, water appears. The defects of these offering substances will be blown away by the wind, Burned by fire, And cleansed by water. AH OM HUNG radiating from the pure heart, the varieties of the offering substance are immeasurable.

YANG AH OM HUNG DRUM SO HA”

[Together with the drum and bell we make offerings]

SO! We have faith and devotion expressed by our body, speech and mind. With actual mind emanation, These infinite special offerings of form, sound, smell, taste, Touch, and Bon, we visualize as precious treasures. Filling up the three-thousand-fold universe. We offer to the wrathful tiger deity and his retinue. Please receive our offerings in order to liberate evil entities.

SO KO RI LANG PA NI DRUM SOHA

We then visualize:

“The DRUM syllable appears from the center of your heart, and then from the DRUM syllable, a vessel of wine emerges. Then begin chanting Om Ah and Hung. The wine is transformed into precious nectar.”

Then, we chant the Nectar Mantra below four times, doing the four offering mudras:

SO OM[e] AH HUNG! BA WA DÉ NA RA SA YA NA YU DRANG DÜ TSI SO TA

OM AH HUNG!"

There are four mudras we can make with our hands, the swastika mudra, the wheel mudra, lotus mudra, and jewel mudra. These represent offerings in the four directions. 

Then using a spoon, you can offer wine to Takla Mebar, spooning the wine from the tea cup to the empty offering bowl on the altar.

Then recite with bell:

“OM AH HUNG!

The medicine of marvelous wonders is The elixir essence with an immense taste of 100,000 basic roots. It is within a tigle that encompasses everything, And it has marvelous attributes. As for the consecrated nectar of ambrosia, We offer it to all buddhas from the 10 directions who are Connected with great masters and lamas. With compassion and intention, please bestow the blessings, And enjoy the nectar's medicine That has wonderful attributes.

As for these nectars of ambrosia, To Takla Mebar, who will tame arrogance, We make offerings of nectar. With compassion and intention, please bestow the blessings, And enjoy the nectarous drink. The attributes are marvelous. This portion of the nectar, We offer to Takla Mebar, his retinue, And to his multiple manifestations. With compassion and intention, please bestow empowerments, And enjoy the nectarous drink.

Takla Mebar’s body, speech and mind are magical and they empower my own body, speech, and mind. Please transform non-duality and bestow ultimate blessings.

OM AH HUNG DU LHEN”

Note: These activities of doing the mantras & mudras, making the offering, and reciting can be done by multiple people in attendance if able.

Once done, we can offer the remaining wine to the participants in attendance. The wine is no longer regular wine but the marvelous ambrosia nectar drink. Drink a small sip, and enjoy the sweet blessing.

Torma/Food Offering

Place some cookies and treats on a plate and place them on the altar. Chant the following with a drum:

“On the precious authentic torma plate, the offerings fill the attributes of the five sense pleasures, and Radiate shafts of light beams of inexhaustible wisdom. We offer this to the great wrathful Tiger Deity and his retinue. Please receive our offerings in order to liberate obstructing spirits.

OM AH HUNG BAH LING TA ZHE MIN KHA HI”

Tea Offering

Using a spoon, you can offer tea to Takla Mebar, spooning the tea from the tea cup to the empty offering bowl on the altar. Then recite with drum:

“Oneself appearing in the form of Takla Mebar, a dark red ZA radiates from the red SO of the heart, and transforms into the form of a hook. Having been summoned, the heart and blood of negative forces are dissolved into our offering container. Attracted through the mantra of liberated consciousness, they are dissolved. To remove the negative forces, we will now offer flesh, blood and bones.

With musical instruments:

SO! In the precious authentic torma vessel, With the flesh and blood of evil entities, the blood of many hearts and various organs are mingled. Please take this offering to liberate our own hearts’ blood.

Kha ram kha hi, open the mouth, a flesh mountain is heaped together which will destroy ignorance. The blood ocean is heaped together which will destroy desire. The bone of the rock mountain is heaped together which will destroy anger. These are the offerings to the flaming wrathful deity. Please take the flesh and blood offering.

MA HA TSI TA LA KHA RAM KHA HI

MA HA TING MUR NYING TRAK LA KHA RAM KHA HI

MA HA DÜN TSÉ LÉ TRAK LA KHA RAM KHA HI”