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According to Vajra Yogini, there are many lost sadhanas (spiritual practices) in Tibetan Buddhism. Though Buddhist lamas made efforts to memorize them and pass them down, not all were saved.She says,
Some sadhanas were rejected for political reasons, some were destroyed in battles, landslides, or avalanches, and others were destroyed by jealous rivals. I gave this teaching centuries ago, but it was understood as too individual for the lineage. There was no necessity of having a lama present, and no ritual invocation of the lineage founder. So it was never copied and put in the library of the monastery.I work with both male and female novices, and those that are in-between. Many of these mixed gender people came into monasteries in Tibet, for marriage would be difficult for them. The monastic system protected them as manifestations of the Yab-Yum form of tantric Buddhist deities. This was never publicized.
As this meditation is practiced, mantras and mudras are revealed. It is one of the faster purification rituals. So it is good for novices.
In general, I appear in attractive forms to test for desire, and in repulsive forms to test for hatred and ignorance. For those not bound by the passions, I appear in creative forms. As I speak now, I am formless.
The Meditation The novice practitioner must undergo initial purification rites. The place of meditation must be clean, quiet, and not dedicated to another deity. The person should bathe, wear clean clothes, and hold offerings and incense. Offered flowers should be red for meditation on passion and desire, yellow for meditation on benevolence, and blue for meditation on detachment.
At the beginning, the novice should surround him or herself with fiery white light, and ask for divine protection.
There should be a central candle or fire. A large circle should be drawn around the novice. In Tibet, if the meditation place is a burning ground or graveyard, no corpses, buried bodies, or human ash should be within the circle.
Within the candle or fire, visualize a lotus throne of flame. Visualize me in my initial form as The Devourer of Sin. I am a human skeleton or an emaciated crone, a form repellent to most people. I have the ugliness of the sins that I consume. I sit on the throne surrounded by the skulls and bones of the living traumas that I have devoured.
The light rises and forms a second throne in which I am in human female form, attractive but dangerous. I carry a bone knife and drink blood from a skull. I wear bone ornaments and am powerful.
I rise from the second throne and take the initiate's body and flay it in the fire taking the flesh and offering it to all sentient beings. The soul that remains has been stripped of bad karma or impurity, and the body of desire taken from it.
The fire rises again, and then I take the form of a beautiful apsaras ( Hindu heavenly dancer), benevolent and kind on a golden and pearl throne. Here I return the body of the novice, cleaned of impurity and remade. The novice bows and is given a new name. He or she is also given a path to follow. The path may concentrate on following one of the wisdom Buddhas, or an emanation form of Vajradhara. It may be a wrathful form if there continue to be impurities, or peaceful if the search for knowledge is dominant in the personality.
These three levels of the throne are fused into the soul of the novice. The fiery throne is at the abdomen, the throne made of bone is at the heart and throat, and the third throne of gold and pearl is at the top of the head. The passions are burned away at the lower throne. The attachments at the mind and heart are limited and reduced at the second throne. The highest throne blesses the soul with freedom and beauty.
The soul or self of the novice is fused with mine - I become a part of the self. I am the part of the self that encourages the path to liberation, pushing all other concerns away.
Within the sacred circle, the person is transformed. In it I dance to the sound of conch and drum. And I can open the person to the form of the Buddha which appeals to what is deepest in the person.
The cosmic winds blow the circle away. There is no longer any difference between the world within the circle and the world outside it.
At the end of the meditation, the person should visualize rainbow light around him or her. This will force any negative entities within the space to surface, thus purifying the space. Then say, "The teaching is ended".
Next, we describe a second meditation provided by Vajra Yogini.
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