Elucidating the Body Maṇḍala

Clarifications on the Recitation Manual of the Female Practice of the

Queen of Great Bliss
by Jigme Lingpa

Homage to the venerable Vajrayoginī!

Herein is contained a supplementary text that will remove all doubts concerning the
Recitation Manual1 of the ḍākinī Queen of Great Bliss, the utterly profound practice
of the female awareness-holder.

Generally in the Mantra Vehicle, the path consists of two stages: the generation
phase and the completion phase. This is in order to purify the impure appearances of
the world and its inhabitants as well as our confused attachment to them. As for the
support, the vessel that is the world; as well as the supported, the essence that is all
beings, there is nothing that is not made of the five elements. The outer elements are
the five of earth, water, fire, wind, and space; the inner elements are the five of flesh,
blood, warmth, breath, and consciousness. You must understand that their essence is
the natural purity of the five female buddhas, just as in the statement ‘Earth and
water are Buddhalocanā [and Māmakī…]’. 2 The empty spaces in the netherworld,
terrestrial world and celestial world are known as the three realms of existence. You
should also know that they are naturally awakened as the pure realms of the
awakened ones.

In particular, the aggregates, elements and sense sources; and the faculties, objects
and eight consciousnesses are what appear to us as impure sentient beings. Through
the profound generation phase, which includes the objects of purification and the
results of purification, you will unmistakably know them to have the nature of the
deities. You will know the essence of purity, the nature of reality. When you stabilize
this clear appearance taken as the path, it is called the 'generation phase of the great
consummate nature’.3

Now, what are the objects of purification and what are the results of purification?
The objects of purification are the stains. This refers to the five aggregates and five
elements that initially arise from the all-ground consciousness and the defiled
consciousness, and also to the collection of consciousnesses that are defined as the
sense sources (including the five faculties) that are the result of dominant conditions
and objective conditions. These are mutually connected as object and subject. The
result of purification is the arising in the form of deities such as the blessed, glorious
Samantabhadra, who is the self-cognizing king of awareness and the embodiment of
infinite maṇḍalas. As the Immaculate Confession Tantra says:

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 When the secret all-ground is purified within all-pervading space, the mind
naturally arises as the self-cognizing king of awareness, the father of the
buddhas of the three times… 4

Mind is the dominant condition because it is the agent that generates confusion. If
you realize that it lacks true nature you’ll know it to be the ultimate Samantabhadra
of the natural condition, the self-cognizant king of awareness.5

The term dharma has many meanings, yet here it refers to the objective condition,
which is the element of mind, [i.e., the object]. Although this could apply to anything
with characteristics in saṃsāra and nirvāṇa, on this occasion it refers to all that
appears as the relative once it is brought within the all-pervading space that is free
from conceptual elaboration—the absolute truth of the nature of reality, which arises
as the mother who generates all maṇḍalas. It is therefore given the name
Samantabhadrā, the acted-upon object.6

Secondly, although [the deities] remain in the dharmakāya, all-pervading space, in

order to illustrate the union of appearance and emptiness, they are shown to have
aspects such as a face and hands. It is said:

Utter purity of action and actor, mind and its object;

I pay homage to Samantabhadra and his consort!7

Likewise, to illustrate the five aggregates, it is said:

In the absolute, beings’ aggregate of consciousness is naturally pure. That is

the essence of all the enlightened minds of the Thus Gone Ones.

From here, continuing up to:

I pay homage to the blessed, glorious Vajrākṣobhya!

With this, the characteristics of the objects of purification and the results of
purification are explained. If you analyse this, you will also be able to understand the
visualizations for the deities of the body maṇḍala. Still, [to render this clearly],
Samantabhadra is in the mudrā of meditative equipoise and his consort is in the
mudrā of ‘hands folded together in dharmodaya’. The buddhas of the five families
hold in their right hand their respective sign and in their left, a bell. The consorts
hold a bell in their right hand and in their left, their respective sign. Their colours are
also determined by their family. To show the meaning of this, our own text says:

At her heart, the expanse of the glorious knot,8

Are the unfabricated, naturally arisen, completely perfect deities.
At the centre of a five-spoked wheel
Is the pure nature of the all-ground consciousness, mind and phenomena:

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 The all-pervading awareness is Samantabhadra.
In union with his consort Samantabhadrā, they are appearance and emptiness
indivisible.
On the five spokes are the deities of pure form, feeling, perception,
Formation and consciousness:9

Here it is gradually explained how the colour of the form of Vairocana, the purity of
the aggregate of form, is white, and so on. Intelligent people might notice that there
are minor discrepancies in the commentaries on the tantras, yet in our own tradition
we should rely on the Dispelling Darkness in the Ten Directions10 commentary on the
Illusory Net,11 which is the basis for the hundred peaceful and wrathful deities. If you
do not realize the deities’ objects of purification and results of purification through
this kind of generation phase, you might achieve a clear appearance, but still be
deluded, which would be no different from seeing an ordinary temple—you won’t
understand the crucial points of how to swiftly traverse the path based on the
Mantra Vehicle’s path of skilful means.

The Twenty-Four Sacred Places

Furthermore, on the outer level, in this world of Jambudvīpa there are the twenty-
four places where the heroic ones and ḍākinīs naturally gather. The Cakrasaṃvara
Tantra says:12

In Kulutā13 and Maru,

In Sindhu and Nagara,14
In Suvarṇadvīpa and Saurāṣṭra,
In Gṛhadevatā and Pretapurī,
In Himālaya and Kāñci,
In Lampāka and Kaliṅga,
In Kośala and Triśakuni,
In Kāmarūpa and Oḍra,
In Mālava, Devīkoṭa,
Rāmeśvara, and Godāvarī,
And in Arbuda, Uḍḍiyāna,
Jālandhara, Pullīramalaya, and so on.
The girls of these places are yoginīs
Who are indivisible15 from the heroic ones.
They all have amorous forms
And are engaged through the power of mind.

Similar lists are found in other tantras, but fearing verbosity, I shall leave it at this.
As regards these places, they are entirely present internally, within our own body, as
shown in a line in our practice text: ‘The crown of the head is…’. Those places’

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channels are completely transformed into heroic ones and their elements are
completely transformed into yoginīs, each with their own names and in union. This
is shown explicitly in the mother tantra of Cakrasaṃvara, in chapter forty-one:

The Six Yoginīs are in Kulutā,

And the Mothers are in the land of Maru.
The Lāmās are in the land of Sindhu,
And Ladies of the families are in Nagara.
In Lampāka and Saurāṣṭra are
The goddesses of the families.
In Pretapurī is Mahākālā16
With the ḍākinī Rūpinī.

At the Himālayan mountains and Kāñci,

In the regions of Pañcāla and Kaliṅga,
The householder goddesses who uphold yogic discipline,
And Sabālikā, are said to be.

At Kośala are the female meat-eaters.

At Pretapurī those who eat the great flesh,
The vajraḍākinīs are at Sthūleśvara.
At Triśakuni are the Khaṇḍarohās,
And also at Pullīramalaya.
On the golden mountain there are twenty-one thousand women
Born in the Meshachen family.

Whatever others there are,

They are all part of the circle of ḍākinīs
Of the glorious Heruka—
They are the Ladies of the maṇḍala
Of the glorious Heruka, the great churner.

These twenty-four ḍākinīs are pervasively present

In everything animate and inanimate of the three worlds
And in all sentient beings.
This samaya of the ḍākinīs
Is to meditate on these emanations.
Meditation and so forth, anything that is done,
Will be brought to perfection on this earth.

Thus, as this explains, mantra is accomplished through samaya and aspiration. Once
you gain certainty that the inner twenty-four places have the nature of the chief
goddesses, this will be of immeasurable benefit when it comes to generating
inconceivable cities of heroic ones and ḍākinīs through aspiration. The same text
also says:
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 When a mantrika remains always in meditative equipoise
And in the night17 wears the clothing of the sky,
Whether male or ‘left’,18
All yoginīs and heroic ones will be pleased.

If the offering of the mudrā of dance

Is always offered to the Self-Arisen One,
Then everything without exception is accomplished—
You’ll be fully engaged in the worship of the left.19

You should know that ‘left’ here relates to gender and refers to the gathering of
ḍākinīs, yet it can also be understood as a mental disposition.20 Similarly the vast
retinues of hundreds of thousands of ḍākinīs is an inclusive category. The Collected
Tantras of the Early Translation School contains the following:

Hundreds of thousands of great gandharvīs,

Hundreds of thousands of great kumbhāṇḍīs,
Hundreds of thousands of great brāhmīs...

There are others too, but I shall not list them all. In a similar vein, regarding the
residence of the wisdom being, other tantras say:

In the heart is Kāñci.

Memory is Himālaya.

Each text thus has its own way of applying the purity. Here, it is not that
Samantabhadra and his consort at the heart are transformed into Vajravārāhī. You
need to abandon negative thoughts such as thinking that Vajravārāhī is in the heart
of Samantabhadra and his consort; and clinging to imputations of such conceptual
thoughts as putting one thing inside something else, or one thing touching
something else, or thinking that they would mutually obstruct one another. Rather,
you need to meditate clearly on the completely perfect deities, who are the radiance
of the natural, unfabricated state. In the expanse of light at the level of the heart of
the chief goddess, meditate on the wisdom deity Vajravārāhī in an especially clear
manner and focus your awareness without wavering. Then, imagine light rays
radiating out and gathering in and so on, as described in the Recitation Manual. This
is to be understood from the spoken teachings and has the seal of the extraordinary
oral tradition. Nevertheless, when doing the recitation of the body maṇḍala, meditate
that in the heart of Samantabhadra and consort, within a casket of the union of the
sun and moon, is the life-force syllable a (ཨ) surrounded by the mantra garland.

Palding Jetsün Drung, who has the great fortune of having met the profound and swift
path and is diligently applying the sacred teachings and practices, sent a messenger
from afar urging me to write down some quintessential pith instructions. In the past I

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made many mistakes by releasing the seal of these sacred words to numerous
individuals who didn’t even practise and who simply plundered them. Still, I have only
ever explained these things with a pure motivation. Therefore, ḍākinī Dharma
custodians, I beg you to consider that and forgive me. Please clear away all errors that
reduce the blessing of this Dharma and obscure the great accomplishment, transforming
them into great purity! This was written at the glorious Sanctuary of Lotus Light (Pema
Ö Ling).21

| Translated by Han Kop under the guidance of Tulku Dawa Zangpo of Chorten Gompa and edited by
Adam Pearcey and Libby Snape, for the Longchen Nyingtik Project, 2020. This translation was made
possible through the generous support of Áron Csöndes.

Bibliography

Tibetan Editions
‘Jigs med gling pa. "yum ka bde chen rgyal mo'i bsnyen yig yang gsal lus dkyil
mngon brjod", in gSung 'bum/_'Jigs med gling pa/ （sde dge par ma）. 9 Vols. BDRC
W27300. Gangtok, India: Pema Thinley for Dodrupchen Rinpoche, 1985. Vol. 7: 243–
249.

___ . "yum ka bde chen rgyal mo'i bsnyen yig yang gsal lus dkyil mngon brjod", in
gSung 'bum/_'Jigs med gling pa (a 'dzom par ma/ 'brug spa gro la bskyar par brgyab
pa/). 14 Vols. BDRC W7477. A 'dzom chos sgar par khang, 1999?. Vol. 10: 277–286

___ . "yum ka bde chen rgyal mo'i bsnyen yig yang gsal lus dkyil mngon brjod", in
gSung 'bum/_'Jigs med gling pa. 9 Vols. BDRC W1KG10193. Gangtok, Sikkim: Sonam
T. Kazi, 1970-1975. Vol. 7: 370–380.

___ . "yum ka bde chen rgyal mo'i bsnyen yig yang gsal lus dkyil mngon brjod", in
klong chen snying thig rtsa pod. 5 Vols. BDRC W1KG13585. Bodhnath, Kathmandu
and Bodhgaya, Bihar: Shechen Publications, 1994. Vol. 1: 321–331.

___ . "yum ka bde chen rgyal mo'i bsnyen yig yang gsal lus dkyil mngon brjod", in
rig ’dzin ’jigs med gling pa’i gsung ’bum. 9 Vols. China: Si khron mi rigs dpe skrun
khang & bod ljongs bod yig dpe rnying dpe skrun khang, 2018.

Other Primary Sources

___ . "bshags pa thams cad kyi rgyud dri ma med pa’i rgyal po", in snga ’gyur rgyud
’bum phyogs bsgrigs. 59 Vols. BDRC W1KG14783. Beijing: mi rigs dpe skrun khang,
2009. Vol. 17: 7–106.

Kambala (La wa pa). “'khor lo sdom pa’i dka' ’grel sgrub pa’i thabs kyi gleng gzhi".
bstan 'gyur (dpe bsdur ma). Beijing: krung go’i bod rig pa’i dpe skrun khang, 1994.
Vol. 8: 827–1018

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Secondary Sources
Gray, David. The Cakrasamvara Tantra. New York: American Institute of Buddhist
Studies, 2007.

___ . Tsong Khapa’s Illumination of the Hidden Meaning: Maṇḍala, Mantra, and the
Cult of the Yoginīs. New York: American Institute of Buddhist Studies, 2017.

Samten Gyaltsen Karmay. The Great Perfection (rDzogs chen): A Philosophical and
Meditative Teaching of Tibetan Buddhism (second edition). Leiden & Boston: Brill,
2007.

Sugiki, Tsunehiko. “The Structure and Traditions of the Systems of Holy Sites in
Buddhist Samvara Cycle and Its Related Scriptural Cycles in Early Medieval South
Asia.” In Shingo Einoo (ed.) Genesis and Development of Tantrism. Tokyo: Institute
for Oriental Culture, University of Tokyo, 2009. pp. 515–62

1. The Main Recitation Manual for the Female Practice of the Queen of Great Bliss,
by Jigme Lingpa himself. ↩

2. This refers to the quotation from The Secret Essence Tantra (Skt. Guhyagarbha
Tantra) found in the Recitation Manual. ↩

3. Tib. rang bzhin yongs grub chen po’i bskyed rim ↩

4. "Immaculate Confession Tantra (bshags pa thams cad kyi rgyud dri ma med
pa’i rgyal po)" in snga ’gyur rgyud ’bum phyogs bsgrig (Beijing: mi rigs dpe
skrun khang, 2009), Vol. 17: 18. Compared with this edition of the tantra yid
byed pa po is omitted here. ↩

5. Tulku Dawa Zangpo comments that the discussion up to this point concerns
Samantabhadra, whereas what follows concerns Samantabhadrā. ↩

6. Tib. chos bya ba mo. On the distinction between Samantabhadrā/Kun tu bzang

mo as the passive object (chos bya ba mo) and Samantabhadra/Kun tu bzang po
as the active agent (byed pa po) in the writings of Longchen Rabjam see Samten
Gyaltsen Karmay, The Great Perfection, p. 157. ↩

7. Immaculate Confession Tantra (bshags pa thams cad kyi rgyud dri ma med pa’i
rgyal po), Vol. 17: 19. ↩

8. Skt. śrīvatsa ↩

9. A Glorious Garland of Great Bliss—the Fundamental, Female Practice of Tsogyal,

the Queen of Great Bliss ↩

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10. By Longchen Rabjam ↩

11. i.e., Guhyagarbha Tantra. ↩

12. For translations of passages from the Cakrasaṃvara Tantra and Sanskrit
spellings, David Gray, The Cakrasamvara Tantra (New York: American
Institute of Buddhist Studies, 2007); and Sugiki, 'The Structure and Traditions
of the Systems of Holy Sites in Buddhist Samvara Cycle and Its Related
Scriptural Cycles in Early Medieval South Asia' have been very helpful. The
Cakrasaṃvara Tantra was translated into Tibetan by Padmākara and Rinchen
Zangpo (rin chen bzang po; 958–1055); that translation was then revised at least
twice. The revision currently accepted as canonical (the one found in the Derge
Kangyur) was made by Prajñākīrti and Marpa Dowa (or Mardo) Chökyi
Wangchuk (mar pa do ba chos kyi dbang phyug; ca. 1042-ca. 1136); another was
made by Sumatikīrti and Locāna Lodrö Drak (mal gyo Lo tsā ba blo gros grags
pa; 11th century). Gray comments that the Sumatikīrti revision (the phug brag)
is “of great significance as it often provides alternate readings, some (but not
all) of which accord more closely with the surviving Sanskrit” (Gray, The
Cakrasamvara Tantra, 145.). To make matters more complicated, however,
Jigme Lingpa uses a different version from the phug brag that Gray has used.
Jigme Lingpa’s version corresponds most closely to another revision, also
attributed to Sumatikīrti and Locāna Lodrö Drak (BDRC W2DB54922),
although even this is not a complete match. For example, Jigme Lingpa’s text
has yi dwags where W2DB54922 has ka+tya che, and elsewhere has sha chen za
where W2DB54922 has de bzhin du. ↩

13. Sugiki (p. 532) has Kulatā, but this spelling does not seem to be attested in any
Tibetan text. ↩

14. Gray and Sugiki have Nagara. This spelling is also found in the commentaries
by Vajrapani (W1PD95844, p. 1061) and Tsongkhapa (W20510, p. 248). ↩

15. Kambala comments in his 'khor lo sdom pa’i dka' ’grel sgrub pa’i thabs kyi gleng
gzhi that this means sexual union (snyoms par ‘jugs pa’o). Vol. 8: 991. ↩

16. The following section is increasingly obscure and it is not possible to

completely reconcile the Tibetan with Gray’s translation based on the Sanskrit.
The translation is therefore provisional. ↩

17. All versions of Jigme Lingpa’s text read mtshan ma (sign/mark), yet this must
be a mistake for mtshan mo (night), which is to be found in all editions of the
tantra. ↩

18. Tsongkhapa comments that ‘left’ here refers to a woman. See David Gray,
Tsong Khapa’s Illumination of the Hidden Meaning: Maṇḍala, Mantra, and the

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 Cult of the Yoginīs (American Institute of Buddhist Studies, 2017), Chapter 41.
↩

19. These are the final verses of chapter 41. Gray’s translation is as follows: [If]
one is always heteropraxical, naked, and equipoised at night, [then] all heroes
and yoginis, who are born from the hero, are delighted. The self-emergent
worship should be performed with offerings of gesture and dance. Everything
is achieved without exception by means of the worship of the left. Gray, The
Cakrasamvara Tantra, 336–337. ↩

20. This line is somewhat obscure. The Tibetan reads: rtags kyi sgo nas mkha' 'gro
ma tshogs dang / kun slong gi sgo nas g.yon pa zhes bstan par rig par bya'o ↩

21. The temple at Jigme Lingpa’s hermitage, Tsering Jong. ↩

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