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Tibetan Buddhist lamas give empowerments to their disciples and students. Here the Vajra Dakini explains the meaning of the term empowerment and how empowerment improves access to the Sambhogakaya. She says,Empowerments work much like giving Hindu yogic living mantras**. They help to open the locked gateways and doorways of the spirit.When the soul [or jiva] enters the body at birth, the gates are locked behind it. If they were not locked, infants would have souls that came and went randomly in and out of their bodies. This would not only be confusing, it would also obstruct necessary learning. During the birth process, souls enter gradually, lingering near the developing fetus, but they do not enter fully until birth. As the birth canal closes [and the infant emerges] following birth, the door to the intermediate world closes, and the soul is fully localized in the body.
Abortion does not kill the soul, but it means that the soul needs to be directed to another body.
There is much confusion about the Buddhist denial of the soul. This is because it speaks of the atman, not the jiva. The atman is the universal soul, and Buddhists negate the realization of the atman as the goal of life. But many forms of Buddhism still believe in the jiva, which carries the karma from life after life during reincarnation. Philosophers avoid using the term, but Buddhism accepts the functions of the jiva, if not its name. Karma continues life after life.
But once birth has occurred, the gateway to the intermediate worlds is locked. For most people, the lock gets rigid and rusty, and it is hard to open again. To most people, the gate looks like a wall.
For more advanced souls, the gateway can occasionally open, in dreams or in altered states. This is usually outside the control of the person, and such openings occur randomly and spontaneously.
For more dedicated souls who wish to see beyond the gateway, there are special meditations. These are aided by the subcategory of initiations known as "empowerments."
These are ways to open spiritual locks that are rigid and hard to open. The living mantra is like oil, allowing the lock to open more easily.
Sometimes writers use the metaphor of a key in a lock, but if the lock is rigid [or frozen] the key will not turn. I prefer the image of rust remover getting rid of the blockage.
The meditation becomes a sort of reversal of birth as the soul goes back to its previous locale. In a quest for knowledge, it sometimes goes back through past lives or has glimpses of past incarnations. The knots of karma must be untied one by one. This tends to be a long process. It is best to have a guide, a lama or guru or bodhisattva for there can be many distractions. One can be bound by passions of past lives, and new karmic bonds can be formed. People can get distracted by the past and end up looking for friends and relatives from a given life.
Some forms of Buddhism wish the person to ignore the whole sambhogakaya realm and just meditate on emptiness. This may help intuitive perception, but it does little to deal with karmic bondage. As such, it is not helpful in the long run.
Visualization of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas can be helpful, but the tendency of most sadhanas is to dissolve the images as soon as they are created. The means the person cannot accept spiritual gifts, for they deny the existence of the giver and they do not develop a relationship with the visualized bodhisattva that the image was intended to create. Thus, they miss out on important forms of aid that are available.
This is Mahayana, the great path. It is not only for physical beings. It accepts and appreciates the supernatural ones as well. Our words are holy oil.
The Two Types of Initiation In general terms, initiation usually is of two types - lineage and tantric deity or Buddha initiation.
Lineage initiation (or diksha) focuses on important historical teachers and their writings. The novice will take vows learning ethical and behavior rules, and learn to fit into the group.
Tantric initiation is different. It focuses not on the human teacher and rules but on access to deeper states. These initiations can also be lineage based and have the novice learn about previous gurus. But its emphasis is on access to supernatural worlds, both formed and formless.
For access to worlds of form, a mantra is transmitted by someone who knows how it works. It can open deeper realms generally, or it may be specific to a Buddha or Bodhisattva's realm, and it is often accompanied by a mandala or yantra.
The generalized empowered mantra opens up the bardo realms of reincarnation, which includes the alaya storehouses of knowledge. It is a realm of vast yogic awareness.
More specific empowerered mantras are associated with the mandalas of deities. When the mandala is correctly visualized and opened with the appropriate mantra, the person may enter one of the Buddha realms.
Mandalas open like combination locks with many levels of tumblers and moving parts.
The center of the mandala is the doorway to the palace of the Buddha, dakini, or other deity. There are usually geometrical forms which are abstract bodies of guardians. They will create barriers or distractions for the soul.
The soul must have absolute focus on entrance into the Buddha realm, and on the Buddha figure. We may have workship or honor, or asking for knowledge. These are the major approaches [when relating to the Buddha]. It is then up to the deity as to how to respond to the novice yogi or seeker.
** The concept of Mantra in Hinduism is complex, with many facets, and Tantric Buddhism echoes some of its elements. In many yogic traditions which find their roots in the Upanishads, for example the Shabda Yoga tradition of Hinduism, the entire universe was created by primal sound (shabda or Shabda Brahman), the substance of the active feminine principle of creation (shakti) can manifest to the seeker by the sound of an empowered mantra. Such a sound is understood to contain pure (sattvic) spiritual power within it. The origin of this power was the primeval ether or Parma Akasha. Mantras given at initiation often have their origin in a distant rishi or sage who empowered them when he or she reached the state of moksha or spiritual freedom. The power of the mantra is then believed to echo down the lineage through multiple generations of disciples and finally to the current initiate receiving the mantra. In Sanskrit, the man prefix means "to think" and the tra portion of the word means to protect or free the seeker from the bondage of maya (illusion) or samsara. A good definition of the word mantra is "the thought that liberates or protects." The six traditional aspects of the mantra are the originating sage or sect that empowers the mantra, the raga or melody that defines how the mantra is to be chanted, the Devata or presiding personal deity who represents the transcendent power of the mantra, the bija or seed sound (a compressed, single syllable version of the mantra), the Shakti or spiritual power of the mantra, and the pillar (symbolizing the strength and perseverance required for the student to activate the power of the mantra).
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