r/vajrayana • • 15d ago

Monthly /r/Vajrayana Upcoming Events Thread

0 Upvotes

We can use this thread to post upcoming teachings, empowerments, lungs, retreats and other events the community may be interested in. A new thread will be posted each month to keep things up-to-date.


r/vajrayana • • Jun 11 '25

Weekly r/Vajrayana Musings & Discussion

3 Upvotes

Please use this thread to discuss random thoughts, discussions and other comments related to Vajrayana Buddhism. This can hopefully de-clutter the front page a bit as this is something users have requested. Let's use it for benefit!


r/vajrayana • • 2d ago

Today on Jigme Lingpa’s anniversary, read👀 the amazing account of Jigme Lingpa’s vision of the Longchen Nyingtik

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36 Upvotes

Image Jigme Lingpa’s vision of the Longchen Nyingtik, by Tara di Gesu

An Account of Jigme Lingpa’s vision of the Longchen Nyingtik.

*Excerpt from:

Dance of the Moon in the Water: An Account of my Realizations And Secret Visionary Experiences:

…on the evening of the twenty-fifth day of the tenth month of the Female Fire Ox year (1757), my devotion to the great master Guru Padmasambhava blazed so intensely that tears welled up. Prompted by some vague memories from the past, I was overcome with a profound sense of sadness: “We red-faced Tibetans behave like outcasts, and in this land where people live with a mere semblance of the Teachings and are rife with desire and aversion, I wander like an orphan left behind in the borderlands. That compassionate protector, greater than all the buddhas, has departed for the Glorious Copper-Coloured Mountain. When will I ever have the fortune to meet him now?” At this thought I was filled with immense grief. I fell asleep with tears flowing ceaselessly.

As I mentioned in the autobiographical account of my realization, The Dance of the Moon in the Water(direct pdf download), the following vision occurred to me. Amid a vast expanse of luminosity, all-pervading and boundless, I was riding a beautiful white snow lioness and was carried off into the limitless reaches of space. After a while a landscape took shape and I arrived on the circumambulation path of what seemed to be the Jarung Khashor Stūpa of Boudha in Nepal. As soon as I went to its eastern courtyard I met the dharmakāya wisdom ḍākinī face to face. She handed me a flat wooden casket shaped like a sealed amulet box and said:

For disciples with pure perception,\ You are Tri Songdetsen.\ For disciples with impure perception,\ You are Senge Repa.\ This is the treasure of Samantabhadra’s wisdom mind,\ The symbols of Vidyādhara Padma’s vast expanse,\ The great secret treasury of the ḍākinīs. Let the signs be absorbed.

The moment she had said this she vanished without trace and the vision grew faint and hazy. Overflowing with joy, I opened the casket. Out tumbled five rolls of yellow scroll paper and seven white crystals about the size of peas. As I opened the largest scroll on the spot, the air was filled with countless aromatic fragrances of medicinal herbs such as camphor. My head and whole body tingled, and suddenly a thought arose: “The treasure lord of this is Rāhula. These teachings are extremely potent and should be approached with caution.” When I gradually unrolled it, I noticed that outwardly it had the form of a stūpa and inside it was abound with the secret symbolic script of the ḍākinīs, beyond the reach of the intellect. Unable to read it, I began to roll it up again, and at that very instant, like a magical illusion, the drawing of the stūpa disappeared and the symbols within all turned into Tibetan script. It was a sādhana cycle of the Great Compassionate One (Dukngal Rangdrol). I skimmed through it and then stopped. Wondering to whom this transmission had fallen, to whom it had been entrusted and what kind of prophecy it contained about my future lives, I looked at the bottom and saw very clearly:

Entrusted as the Dharma share of the Dharma king, father and son.

When I read the rest, the entire text appeared all at once in my mind like a reflection arising in a mirror, yet it was somehow impossible to read it out in sequence. It was an experience difficult to put into words. Then, with boundless joy, I put some of the crystals into my mouth and was about to take the yellow scrolls and return home when a monk in disguise suddenly appeared beside me as a companion. He said, “I’ve long had a feeling that something like this would come to you,” and showed me extraordinary reverence. I became certain he was the protector of the teachings, the Great Sage Rāhula. At that moment I reached the northern courtyard of the circumambulation path. When I opened another scroll, I came upon the key inventory The Casket of Enlightened Mind. It was so exceptionally vivid in my mind that an experience of irrepressible great bliss blazed up. I thought, “This is truly liberation through seeing. I must show it to my mother.” Just then, through an opening in the sky, a richly adorned woman whom I took to be my mother came down abruptly. She was the one who later deciphered the symbols at Samye Chimphu. I showed it to her, saying, “Look, liberation through seeing!” She replied, “You really are too eager to show what ought to be kept secret. It’s not only liberation through seeing but also liberation through tasting, so eat it yourself!” She made me eat all the crystals and yellow scrolls, and when I gulped them down, every word and their meaning was imprinted in my mind, wondrous beyond measure. At that moment I awoke from the visionary experience…


r/vajrayana • • 2d ago

The Affairs of the World will go on Forever... and the Four Thoughts That Turn the Mind

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52 Upvotes

r/vajrayana • • 3d ago

Lerab Lingpa, on Ordinary Magic vs True Wisdom

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34 Upvotes

r/vajrayana • • 3d ago

Vajrayana in Seattle

8 Upvotes

Hello! I've recently moved to Seattle and have come to a point where I want to earnestly commit to a Vajrayana practice. Luckily, there are plenty of Tibetan Buddhist temples around here, as well as a Shingon temple.

On the other hand, this presents me with several options that I'm not sure how to decide between. I'm not clear on the differences between various lineages of the temples in the area.

The Shingon temple interests me the most, but unfortunately it seems like dedicated practice is fairly expensive, at least for me. So I'm not sure if it's even accessible to me.

However, there are other temples in the area that seem to have different approaches. But like I said, they come from different lineages which I don't have the right foundation yet to properly differentiate between. and I don't want to commit to one thing and find out later down the line that one of the other lineages was more suitable for me.

Also, as I said, I don't really have a lot of money to spend on this. Of course I would donate what I can and hopefully I'll have more disposable income in the future to provide more financial support. But I don't want to put it off until then, potentially at a point where the calling is less salient than it is presently.

Does anyone have any advice or insight? What should I take into consideration, how should I go about this, and is there anything I'm missing? Does anyone here have personal experiences with any of these local temples? Thanks in advance!

Also for reference, here are a handful of the local temples I've been looking at:

https://www.sakya.org/

https://blackbird-jaguar-h9pk.squarespace.com/

https://drikungseattle.org/ (This is the closest to me, but their website doesn't give me much to go off of in terms of any "come and see what we're all about and if this may be right for you" style events. And I also am not sure if actual Vajrayana guru-disciple practices are done here)

https://seattle.nalandabodhi.org/

https://diamondway.org/seattle/

https://seattle.shambhala.org/programs/


r/vajrayana • • 5d ago

How to String a Guru Bead on a Mala

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42 Upvotes

r/vajrayana • • 6d ago

Can someone be my Lama?

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3 Upvotes

r/vajrayana • • 6d ago

Identifying Mipham text

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9 Upvotes

r/vajrayana • • 7d ago

Is Dharma a universal path rather than something belonging to a particular tradition like Buddhism?

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2 Upvotes

r/vajrayana • • 8d ago

Does anyone here have experience with Asanga Vajra Sakya Rinpoche?

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1 Upvotes

r/vajrayana • • 10d ago

Dudjom Rinpoche, Sakya Trizin, the 16th Karmapa, the Dalai Lama - the 4 great Buddhist Leaders, 1966

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13 Upvotes

r/vajrayana • • 9d ago

Created a TikTok account to share mantras and buddhist images, I hope you all enjoy! 🙏🏽✨

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0 Upvotes

Namo Shakyamuni Buddha 🙏🏽✨🌈

account @vajra.tara on tiktok


r/vajrayana • • 12d ago

Looking for a sakya teacher that does initiations online

3 Upvotes

Hello everyone

Are there any gurus of the sakya lineage that do initiations (think they are called wang) online either on zoom calls or livestream? Also, are these initiations usually related to a deity like in jenang?

Thank you


r/vajrayana • • 12d ago

Budismo zen y la repetición de mantras

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2 Upvotes

r/vajrayana • • 13d ago

Considering doing Tara's Triple Excellence. Looking for advice

11 Upvotes

Hi everyone. As the title says I'm considering doing Tara's Triple Excellence. It's been many years since I became interested in Vajrayana but have been moving around a lot, and in the countries I lived in there is only one temple in one of them (Chadgug Gonpa) which is not very active and doesn't seem to offer a structured curriculum. I've been shying away from the online stuff but have reached the conclusion that if Vajrayana is what I'm inclined to do it's gonna have to be online for the time being. Been looking around for programs and I've found TTE most appealing. Maybe it's because the way they present the curriculum, maybe because they have the introductory 12 days course which layout quite neatly what lies ahead, don't know. Funny thing is I hadn't heard of Choki Nyima before, but I knew about his half brother Yongey Mingyur having read one of his book, and still I'm more drawn to TTE than Tergar for some reason.

Anyway, my main issue with this is that, given that in Vajrayana Guru yoga is essential, and given the fact that I'm barely going to know Choki Rinpoche and he's not going to know me at all, I'm wondering how this would work out. I know that I can do the first and second excellence without empowerment and such, but it still feels weird to have an online guru with whom I have no relationship whatsoever. How does one deal with this? How much sense does it make to follow this path in such conditions?

I'd be grateful for any insights. Best wishes.


r/vajrayana • • 13d ago

Mechanism behind the effect of prostrations?

11 Upvotes

Hi everyone!

I’m planning to start doing the Diamond Way practices, beginning with prostrations in front of the visualized Refuge Tree. I was wondering what the actual mechanism behind these practices is — how exactly do they affect the mind?

From Lama Ole Nydahl’s book, I understand that the practice works by purifying the inner energy channels in the body. But why is that? How does physically doing prostrations and reciting the Refuge prayer actually bring about this kind of effect on the mind?

Does it just happen “miraculously,” or is there some way to explain how it works?

I’d be interested to hear how this is explained within the Diamond Way tradition, but also how practitioners themselves understand or experience it.


r/vajrayana • • 13d ago

Simple question: Why are so many lama's difficult to get a hold of?

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2 Upvotes

r/vajrayana • • 14d ago

While Practicing Metta(Loving-Kindness), a Tennessee Buddhist inmate Survives Two Lethal injections during her attempted Execution on 30/09/2026. This Story is also Reminiscent of how (The Miracle Sutra) The High King Avalokiteshvara Sutra was Transmitted.

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42 Upvotes

Image1. Christa Pike.\ Image2. Rev. Rogahari Sokatura.

Buddhist Door:

Buddhist Spiritual Adviser Prepares to Accompany Christa Pike at Tennessee Execution

The Guardian:

Christa Pike, 50, had been scheduled for execution at 10am local time on Wednesday for a killing she committed when she was 18, has been taken to hospital after surviving two attempts to execute her with lethal injections.

The Tennessee department of correction later confirmed in a statement that Pike had survived the state’s effort to execute her: “The lethal ⁠injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried ‌out”

“I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done. Even more to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime,” Pike said in a statement that was included in her clemency petition.

The High King Avalokitesvara Sutra

The High King Avalokitesvara Sutra is a dream/miracle Sutra belonging to the Chinese Tripitaka [Taisho Tripitaka 2898] and was also found in the Dunhuang caves, it was transmitted in a dream by a monastic to an unjustly imprisoned treasury officer facing execution, who was devoutly reciting the Universal Gateway Sutra (Chapter 25 of the Lotus Sutra) in an attempt to escape execution, the monk informed him that the universal gateway sutra couldn't save him but 1000 recitations of The High King Avalokitesvara Sutra could.

https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/zh/T85n2898_001

The Sutra invokes a list of innumerable Buddha's & Bodhisattvas in the Universe, who's light blesses the Practitioner!

Here's the background story:

During the Five Dynasties period (907-960), there was a king named High Pleasure. He was the leader of the state of Hsiang and took pleasure in killing. At that time, an official in charge of the treasury, named Sun-jin-deh, involuntarily committed a serious crime. (Textual research showed that it was Sun’s brother who committed the crime and, as the criminal’s relative, Sun was implicated.) Awaiting death while imprisoned, Sun recited the Universal Gateway Article of Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva (Guan Yin) day and night without resting.

Suddenly one day he dreamt of a monk, speaking to him, “You cannot escape the death sentence by reciting this sutra. I advise you to recite instead the High King Avalokitesvara Sutra one thousand times, and then your death sentence will be lifted.”

“How can I obtain this sutra while I am in prison?” asked Sun.

The monk said, “I will teach you orally and you can memorize it in your dream.”

After learning it, Sun sincerely recited the sutra nine hundred times.

Then the time came for Sun to be taken to the market to be executed in public. In fear, Sun asked the prison official how far away was the market. The official asked Sun why he wanted to know. Sun then told him about the monk appearing in his dream and how the High King Avalokitesvara Sutra was supposed to help him from dying. Sun begged the official to slow down so that he could finish the remaining one hundred recitations. Sun managed to complete the recitations by the time they arrived at the market. When the executioner sank his sword into Sun’s neck, the sword broke into three pieces, leaving Sun unscathed.

Being informed of this event, the king was in awe and asked what kind of magic Sun had employed. Sun told the king that he had not used any magic, but how he had been afraid of dying while in the prison and had recited the Universal Gateway Article of Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva. Then he told how a monk had appeared suddenly to him in a dream and taught him to recite the High King Avalokitesvara Sutra a thousand times, thus obtaining the blessing.

The king spoke to Sun, “You are stronger than I am; I regard you as I regard the Buddhas.”

The king then ordered the prison officer to write down the sutra and he ordered all the prisoners, including the ones waiting for execution, to recite this sutra one thousand times. He then tried the sword on them. Everyone survived. Thus the king decreed that everyone in the state should recite this sutra to receive the fruits of blessing.

That is how it came to be known as the High King Avalokitesvara Sutra. It is unprecedented for a sutra to have such spiritual power.

The Sutra has already been translated into English!

🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻


r/vajrayana • • 14d ago

Trying to find a Sakya guru

4 Upvotes

Hello everyone

I am currently trying to find a guru from the sakya lineage. Are there any well-known ones around the internet that I can talk to online?

Thank you


r/vajrayana • • 14d ago

Fudo-Myoo Mantra | Acala Mantra | Powerful Practice to Burn Karma and Attachments

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6 Upvotes

r/vajrayana • • 14d ago

Khenchen Drimed Dawa of Awam Institute

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0 Upvotes

r/vajrayana • • 16d ago

Vajrayogini

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16 Upvotes

r/vajrayana • • 16d ago

Rare chance to receive instructions for a complete Dzogchen cycle online on zoom, Tempa Dukte Lama will be offering the complete cycle of A Khrid Dzogchen teachings and transmission this year, beginning in December.

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30 Upvotes

A Khrid Part I: Ngozhi Teaching & Transmission

With Tempa Dukte Lama

December 5th-6th, & 12th, 2026

In-Person at Olmo Ling & via Zoom

The A Khrid lineage is known as the experiential Dzogchen transmission, passed without interruption from master to student over many centuries. Tempa Lama received these teachings directly from the late His Holiness 33rd Menri Trizin in an extended one-on-one teaching.

In Part I, Tempa Lama will teach the history of the lineage transmission, Gyudrim, and the view of Dzogchen, then focus on Ngozhi, the actual practice of A Khrid Dzogchen. Ngozhi includes detailed instructions for meditation with an object, overcoming obstacles to practice, signs of progress, and the pointing out of the nature of the mind.

Saturdays (Dec 5 & 12): 9:30 AM – 12:30 PM and 2:00 – 4:00 PM EST
Sunday (Dec 6): 9:30 AM – 1:00 PM EST

The five parts of the A Khrid cycle are meant to be attended in succession.

Parts II, III and IV will be added to the schedule shortly and are planned for January 3, 9, and 10 (Part II), January 23 and 24 (Part III), and January 30, 31 and February 6 (Part IV).

More information and registration:
https://olmoling.secure.retreat.guru/program/a-khrid-part-i-session-5-ngozhi-teaching-and-transmission/


r/vajrayana • • 16d ago

Relating to the Sacred —Tenzin Wangyal Rinpche

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2 Upvotes