The Lifeblood of the Practice

The other day, I was talking to Benson.

(You probably know Benson. Teacher, Yogi, LGBTI+ activist, all around wonderful)

He is practicing the Hekate Upadesha that was revealed last year, and he asked me a significant question:

What is the difference in blessings? Why is there such a different in effect, impact, blessings from this Upadesha to others?

And the answer, of course, is Samaya.

Samaya, you see, is what carries the blessings of the Dakinis and Protectors that reveal an Upadesha or a Terma. In a way, Samaya is the compact between you and them. It’s both the framework that details what one part can expect from the other and the channel through which those exchanges happen.

(I’m using Daka, Dakinis and Protectors here almost as the same thing. On one hand, they’re clearly different beings but I’m exploring here their function as teaching-revealers)

Usually it goes like this: The Dakinis offer blessings, teachings and ultimately Enlightenment. You, the practitioner, offer your practice, your time and your body doing the ritual actions so that those blessings become embodied in the world.

It’s a contract.

But what happens to contracts when one of the parts involved don’t comply to it.

It either gets cancelled or ignored. It becomes a cerement of dead letters.

That’s the sad state of affairs for a lot of practice lineages, now.

This, of course, has a reverse: if it is honored, it becomes more than a contract. It becomes culture.

This organic, lived in culture is the best possible endgame. When you become not a practitioner, but an ambassador of the Buddhas.

Therefore, there is this tension: we need more people to practice the Upadesha, but of course, more people means that there is more chance of breaking the compact between the Dakas and the practitioners.

(in this context, I’m using Upadesha and Terma as synonyms for any revealed pure teaching)

My personal solution to this problem is simple: I usually ask the deity in charge of the Upadesha/Terma to reveal a totally public, outside the main contract practice. This works in the sense that usually the practice revealed is a condensation of the main teaching of that cycle. Therefore, the people taking it can gauge their connection to it and myself can gauge the seriousness of the student.

But not all deities accept, in relation to their special cycles. In the Ayaḥkuñcikopadeśaḥ, Hekate’s cycle and Tara’s vow Upadesha the deities accepted. I asked the same for the Monkey King and Three Kings upadeshas and the answer came back a resounding NO. Most of their practices require transmisssion of some kind.

But we must remember that this is also an interdependent situation; I asked this also in the Black Mirror Upadesha and the Protectoress said no, it should not have any kind of public prayer or practice. Then, after some things happened, She came back and say yes, now there are people even posting slaying mantras online in Facebook. Do this prayer to connect and purify the Samaya and teach it

to everyone.

So that’s what I’m doing.

But why? Why go to all this trouble?

Because when you practice something with an intact Samaya, you will feel the warm breath of the Dakinis still on it. You will feel it, and you will see the results, compared to something which has dried up.

Don’t believe me. Try it. Find a close Upadesha or Terma. Compare it to a very long-practiced and broken system. See the difference.

Does this means that all old practices have no blessing? No! There are some teachers still which renew their lineages. You can get new blessings from the Dakinis, every single night. And their practices, given by those teachers, will carry that blessing.

You can see it when you get an empowerment from someone who really connects with a blessing versus someone who just repeats the words. What is the main difference between those practices?

It is not the words, the bones of the practice.

It’s the lifeblood.

The Samaya.

So guard yours, and become a living, pulsing palace for the Dakas and Dakinis to live in.

#samaya #upadesha #terma #dzogchen #buddha