By Shyamal Sinha
BODHGAYA- His Holiness the Dalai Lama began the preliminary empowerment for the Kalachakra initiation said that the devotees must remember that receiving the Wang (empowerment) with a preset attitude of gaining benefits only for this life or personal benefits is a mistake.
“We take an initiation to enhance our capability to attain enlightenment through the generation of wisdom of emptiness. So it is total mistake to have a motivation only for personal gain in this life,” the Dalai Lama said, adding that praying and taking refuge in the three jewels for personal and temporary benefits in this life would be equivalent to asking a great scholar to assist us in making tea.
Aiming to attain liberation from samsara by attending the initiation is also a wrong notion, he said.
“To attain enlightenment, we need to practice Bodhicitta and proper understanding of emptiness. If we have developed Bodhicitta and emptiness, this life would be more blissful, good fortune, long life and it guarantees a good continuous human rebirth,” the spiritual leader said.
During the conferring of internal initiation, His Holiness the Dalai Lama asked his students to visualize the sprouting of the enlightenment seeds with themselves in form of Kalachakra.
While explaining the 18 root Bodhisattva vows and the 46 secondary vows taken during the Kalachakra initiations, the 81-year old spiritual leader said that the most important target should be to diminish the self-cherishing attitude.
“Attitude of considering oneself as the most important and disregarding others should be the main target to rescind. In absence of self-cherishing attitude, there will be impartiality and thought of others would come first. So minimizing such attitude is very important,” the Dalai Lama said, while asking the students to keep all the bodhisattvas as a witness while taking the vows.
The next three days would be the Kalachakra empowerment and on the last day on Jan 14, long life prayer would be offered to His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
