Report February 2025: Empowerment Extracts

This month we have published 14 short texts, all extracted from longer empowerment texts, to facilitate the understanding of students when receiving, especially in the Tibetan language, the empowerments of the Longchen Nyingtik. We have also added several new pages to the website.

Padmasambhava giving empowerment (HAR)

In this day and age, significant efforts are undertaken by various actors and organizations to translate the Tibetan Buddhist teachings into English and other languages. Yet at present, most empowerment ceremonies of the Vajrayana teachings are still being conducted in Tibetan, either by masters who do not speak English or by those who do but continue using Tibetan for various reasons—including the fact that many empowerment manuals still await translation. During these ceremonies, students must repeat certain verses after the vajra master, such as the request for the empowerment, taking refuge and bodhicitta, and the promise to keep the samayas. Since these repetitions are often in Tibetan, we have compiled translations of these verses to help students understand what they are saying. We have dedicated a special page to these extracts: Empowerment Resources.

Gyüluk Phurba
Courtesy of Chorten Dodrupchen

We also added two more web pages. The first is a dedicated page for Tantra System Vajrakīlaya (Gyüluk Phurba). Gyüluk Phurba is a Vajrakilaya practice that arose in the wisdom mind of Jigme Lingpa, but which is at the same time extracted from the tantras.

The second is a page dedicated to the Loud Laughter of the Ḍākinīs (Khandro Gegyang). Khandro Gegyang is the famed ‘severance’ or chö practice of the Longchen Nyingtik and one of the most popular severance practices inside and even outside the Nyingma tradition.