associated with Tibet and Guru Rinpoche is the chief lama associated karmically with Tibet. As for themselves, they had no other refuge, no other lama than Guru Rinpoche. They asked him to give an actual means of accomplishment, a way to be able to really eliminate obstacles. Guru Rinpoche agreed. Placing his left hand on the head of Yeshe Tsogyal, his right hand on the head of King Trisong Deütsen, and his forehead on the forehead of Prince Murub Tseypo, he brought forth from the vast expanse of his dharmakaya wisdom mind the prayer called Sampa Lhündrub.
Then they told Guru Rinpoche this was an extraordinary prayer that all his students would recite, but they still requested him to give an actual sadhana, an application, to eliminate obstacles. Guru Rinpoche agreed, and he manifested the Tukdrub Barchey Künsel mandala. Padmasambhava is the main deity, as the nirmanakaya Nangsi Zilnön. Above him is the sambhogakaya Avalokiteshvara, and above him is the dharmakaya Amitabha or Amitayus, together with the twelve manifestations of Guru Rinpoche, the four gate keepers, and the dakas and dakinis in union. Guru Rinpoche displayed the mandala and gave this teaching, complete with the root tantra, as well as the sadhanas and the different texts for accomplishing the activities through this teaching.
Later these teachings were transmitted to his disciples, who practiced them and, in this way, removed all obstacles and attained accomplishment. Yeshe Tsogyal wrote down the teachings. Twelve years after Guru Rinpoche left Tibet, she hid this terma in the cave of Da-Nying Khala Rong-Go, according to Guru Rinpoche’s prophecy. King Trisong Deütsen’s middle son, Murub Tseypo, made very deep and noble wishes, which, combined with Guru Rinpoche’s blessings, enabled him to appear as Chokgyur Dechen Lingpa and reveal this terma. He kept this terma secret for eight years, just practicing it himself. At the same time, King Trisong Deütsen incarnated as the great master Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo. These two together brought forth this terma treasure of incredible blessing and swift results, known as Lamey Tukdrub Barchey Künsel. With the help of Jamgön Kongtrül, an incarnation of the translator Vairotsana, these teachings were spread throughout Tibet and are now present up to this day.
Lamey Tukdrub Barchey Künsel is the guru’s heart practice that clears away all hindrances, thus actualizing the siddhis. To combine everything in essence and clear hindrances and obstacles, supplicate the root guru. Outer hindrances, caused by the eight or sixteen types of threats, can be removed by calling upon the root guru. All the hindrances inside the subtle channels and energies, which result from mistaken use of the structured channels, the moving energies, and the blissful essences, can be cleared away by calling upon one’s root guru. Defilements can also be cleansed by supplicating one’s root guru. On a secret level, deluded thinking, the multitude of different thoughts that well up, can be purified as well by calling upon one’s root guru.
This is a short explanation that hits the point. In order to apply this deep method, one needs to be a person of higher capacity, someone who has identified and has trust in a root guru—not just lip service, platitudes, or other superficial forms of trust, but a deep willingness from the core of one’s heart to see the root guru as the Buddha in person. Having this trust, one is able to feel complete devotion and surrender, seeing whatever the guru does as perfect and whatever he or she says as excellent. If one is that kind of disciple, able to call upon the root guru out of deep yearning and devotion, with or without words, from the basic seed of one’s mind, completely surrendering from the core of one’s being to the root guru—that is enough. But if one isn’t, and one needs more of a detailed way of going about removing obstacles, then one should supplicate the four additional deities in this cycle, Arya Tara, Achala, Mewa Tsekpa, and Dorje Bechön, to clear away outer, inner, secret, and innermost obstacles. For each of these deities, there is an empowerment, a sadhana, pith instructions on how to practice, activities to carry out, and so forth—many details.
(clockwise from top left): Dorje Bechön, Miyowa, Mewa Tsekpa, Tara
THE QUINTESSENCE OF WISDOM OPENNESS%
Padmasambhava
Emerging from samadhi, Padmakara taught this root yoga, the source of all mandalas:%
Having obtained the supreme freedoms and riches, and being weary of impermanence,%
With intense renunciation, endeavor in accepting and rejecting what concerns cause and effect.%
Those possessing faith and compassion,%
Who wish to attain the supreme and common siddhis in this very life,%
Should ripen their being through empowerment and, with totally pure samaya,%
Take refuge, the root of the path,%
As well as generate the twofold bodhichitta, the essence of the path.%
All evil deeds and obscurations, the conditions opposing experiences and realization%
Of Vajrayana, the ultimate part of the path,%
Should be purified through the profound practice of Vajrasattva.%
In order to perfect the positive conditions, the accumulation of merit and wisdom,%
Offer the mandalas of the ocean-like realms of the three kayas.%
In particular, apply the key points of the essence of all the paths,%
The guru yoga of devotion:%
Amid an ocean of offering clouds in the sky before me,%
Upon the lion throne and layered lotus, sun, and moon,%
Is Orgyen Tötreng Tsal, the embodiment of all objects of refuge.%
He has one face and two arms and is wrathfully smiling and glowing with resplendent light.%
He wears the lotus crown, secret dress, gown, Dharma robes, and brocade cloak.%
Holding a vajra in his right hand and a skull with a vase in his left,%
He embraces the secret mudra in the hidden form of a khatvanga.%
With his two feet in the reveling posture, he is within a sphere of five-colored rainbow light.%
He sends out cloud banks of the all-encompassing Three Roots.%
All that appears and exists is the essence of the glorious guru.%
Perform the external practice in the manner of supplication%
And the inner practice in the manner of recitation.%
Afterward, receive the four empowerments and dissolve Guru Rinpoche into yourself.%
In the luminous state of your mind inseparable from the guru,%
Experience one-pointedly the secret, ultimate guru.%
Through the practice of the great emptiness, the space of suchness,%
Where all the relative and ultimate dharmas%
Are the great supreme dharmakaya of the inseparable two truths,%
You will realize death as the natural state of luminosity.%
Through the practice of the all-illuminating samadhi,%
In the illusory manner of nonconceptual compassion,%
Toward unrealized sentient beings pervading space,%
The bardo will appear as the forms of the deities of the Magical Net.%
Particularly, in order to purify the process of taking birth,%
Practice the development stage, which ends clinging to ordinary experience:%
Visualize as perfected in instantaneous recollection in order to purify miraculous birth,%
And visualize through the emanation and absorption of the seed syllable in order to purify birth by warmth.%