Is Karma Pakshi an open or closed practice? HHK in Berlin

[JKhedrup]

Due to the kindness of a friend, I have a ticket for HH Karmapa's Karma Pakshi empowerment next week in Berlin. (I only had to purchase the train tickets I can't really afford )

This is a practice I have been fascinated by and wanted to receive for a long time. Most of my experience of Guru Yoga practices is within the Gelug Tradition, where the Ganden Lhagyama or Hundreds of Deities of Tushita is the commonly recited concise guru yoga liturgy. This is mostly a sutra practice, with a few elements of tantra included within it. Anyone can do with prayer even without the initiation, although the oral transmission is generally recommended. Similarly, a Guru Rinpoche practice I received from HHDL did not have any commitments, I merely sought out the lung of the Seven Line prayer from Khamtrul Rinpoche and try to recite that as much as possible in order to honour the transmission.

Kamtsang Kagyu is generally, in my experience, the most conservative of the various Tibetan schools regarding these matters. I received the initiation connected with the Milarepa lhadrup from HH Karmapa in Bodh Gaya at the Monlam a couple of years ago. However, only those who completed the Kamtsang Ngondro were allowed to attend the public practice of the Milarepa tsogs feast, despite the fact most of us at the event had received the initiation.

So how does it work with Karma Pakshi? Can I recite the liturgy after receiving this practice? Or do I just take the initiation and not touch the practice until I have managed to complete the Kamtsang Ngondro? Is the Karma Pakshi sadhana available for download somewhere?

Thanks for your consideration in answering what I imagine are pretty boring questions.

[Stewart]

Hi JK...I'll pm you later....but basically it's usually done after Ngondro...or with permission ... It's a relatively complicated and detailed Guru Yoga...so instruction is essential....although I've heard of someone doing a short version, it wasn't really part of the actual sadhana....I can help you get a copy of the text in Tibetan, and also give you more info....give me a few hours to pm you.

[JKhedrup]

Thanks Stewart! I appreciate the help!
Will I see you in Berlin, maybe?

[conebeckham]

Different Lamas have different restrictions...at some centers, it's done as a monthly tsok as long as one has empowerment, and is practicing. In general, though, it is the life-long practice of Western students who complete ngondro, outside of a three year retreat. It's also a life-long practice for retreat graduates, both Western and Asian....

A great practice, and you are lucky to receive this from HHGK!

[Grigoris]

I was given a really simple visualisation and mantra practice before I received the empowerment. It doesn't even have a sadhana.

[conebeckham]

Aside from the main sadhana, there's also a very short Gyun Khyer, focusing on the main figure and mantra only--it's a few lines long.

[JKhedrup]

I'd be very happy to have a copy of the Gyun Kyer if that is possible.

[Caz]

How does practice all these different Guru Yoga's ?

[Grigoris]

How does practice all these different Guru Yoga's ?

Your question doesn't really make sense. Do you mean how does [one] practice all these different guru yoga?

If that is the question then the answers are: One doesn't practice them all. Or one may practice a general guru yoga like that in the ngondro. Or one my practice a specific guru yoga of a teacher they feel a connection with. Or one may practice the specific guru yoga of an individual guru on the specific day assigned to that guru. Or one can realise that all guru have a single nature, so doing the sadhana of any one guru is the same as doing the sadhana for every guru.

I think that pretty much covers all the options.

Oh, of course there is also the option that the enlightened nature of the guru is identical to ones own essence and so one "practices" Mahamudra.

[conebeckham]

How does one practice all those different yidams, you may also ask. It's karmic connection--for instance, in Karma Kagyu we can practice Milarepa, Marpa, Gampopa, Karma Pakshi, Thun Shi Lamai Naljor, 16th Karmapa Guru Yoga.....

With understanding of the essential point, you can practice one, or all, variously--or serially...but it's usually the case that one maintains one main guru practice. Same with yidams....or, really, with any practice.

[JKhedrup]

Most of the Gelugpa lamas I know practice more than one guru yoga as part of their practice. For example, Lama Chopa, Ganden Lhagyama, Chittamani Tara Stairway Guru Yoga and a short Hayagriva guru yoga are all daily practices for my teachers from Sera. It's not a big deal. Most Gelug lamas do more than one guru yoga. Plus of course the 6 session which is a standard commitment


I attend the Karma Pakshi event with my Gelug teachers' blessing. Karmapa is one of my gurus, so it is an opportunity to deepen that connection. Fortinately, I made sure I picked open minded teachers. Sectarianism bores me. If we make time for the various practices there is time.

[narraboth]

Hi,

Rejoice for your merit receiving this in the presence of HH Karmapa.

Some points:

1. It is a terma (it's from Yongey Mingyur Dorje, note not to confuse with Namcho Mingyur Dorje. Many sources simply got it wrong, including Himalaya Art website), so maybe it's equally important how Nyingma tradition do it?

2. Open or close, depends on the text you have. For example, Padmasambhava sadhana can be open or close; if you visualise padmasambhava in front of you and you pray to him, it's very open; if it is the case but something related to visualisation of receiving four empowerments, then ideally you should have received the actual empowerment of any kind from a lama in flesh; if it's about self-generation then it's limited.

3. This Karma Pakshi teaching, is a secret teaching, belongs to anuttarayoga. However, HH Karmapa, as usual, has skipped the upper three empowerments (gong ma dbang gsum). But HH kept the torma wang which is very good according to the text itself.
Well, I think if you more or less knew what HH was doing at that time and followed the procedure, you surely got some authorisation. Otherwise like HH said, it's more like a blessing. I think you are allowed to do a 'guruyoga' style of practice of Karma Pakshi. The original text itself contains self-generation, and for that... I think it depends on how well you followed the empowerment with HH on that Sunday morning. As many masters discussed about, it's hard for us to follow every single detail so that we can get full blessing and authorisation in an empowerment, but there should be some basic requirement. If one doesn't know anything about what's happening, one might not be able to get the empowerment by just listening Tibetan singing and drinking vase water.
Saying that, beside cutting off the upper three empowerments, HH completed all other necessary parts. So I think for people who know how to receive empowerment, it should be a valid one.

4. The original sadhana is more like a original terma text, one has to know how to get the sadhana part out of the whole things (as you are not giving empowerment to others), plus you probably need to add a suitable conclusion session. Anyway the tibetan text is avaliable from Rinchen Terdzo.

[narraboth]

I'd be very happy to have a copy of the Gyun Kyer if that is possible.

I think Khyentse Chokgyi Lodro wrote one, but it's in Ume scripts and shamefully I can't read it.
If you can get someone to at least transfer into Uchen scripts I can send you the text.

[JKhedrup]

Hi Narraboth,

I noticed it was like a combined torma empowerment and also seemed to include the jenang style rituals of blessing Body, Speech and mind. But, like you say, essential aspects of the full Anuttarayoga ritual were left out.
I remember at the time being a little disappointed that they did not translate the portions of the ritual read by HHK, especially as some of them contained points for visualization- I thought the audience missed out on quite a bit, as the visualizations would have been fairly accessible to follow along with. But, as you say, perhaps this was a safeguard as most of the audience were not really fully qualified to engage in the practice, and it was given as a blessing. Thanks for all the info!
Someone kindly sent me the Gyun Kyer.

[narraboth]

Hi Narraboth,

I noticed it was like a combined torma empowerment and also seemed to include the jenang style rituals of blessing Body, Speech and mind. But, like you say, essential aspects of the full Anuttarayoga ritual were left out.
I remember at the time being a little disappointed that they did not translate the portions of the ritual read by HHK, especially as some of them contained points for visualization- I thought the audience missed out on quite a bit, as the visualizations would have been fairly accessible to follow along with. But, as you say, perhaps this was a safeguard as most of the audience were not really fully qualified to engage in the practice, and it was given as a blessing. Thanks for all the info!
Someone kindly sent me the Gyun Kyer.

Hi,

I probably shouldn't say too much here, but in brief:
This empowerment contains three main parts: 1. Vase empowerment together with body, speech, mind, quality and activity blessing. 2. upper three empowerments 3. supplementary torma empowerment.

Only 2. was cutted off.

Different from common meaning of Je-nang, this one has proper vase empowerment. (Terma empowerment texts are often short but usually complete) So, if you did visualise (you got a tangka hanging there right? should be possible to visualise as long as you know when to visualise what, which is kind of common for all empowerment), you get more than only blessing I think.

and 3. the torma dbang, is very good, according to the text probably it can somehow compensate the cutted off part so I am not that disappointed. But first of all you need to have 'the base of empowerment', which requires visualisation.

The case of Terma is a bit special. In Sarma tradition, usually the full empowerment has to be long, mostly two days. The shorter ones are mostly jenang, which requires a full empowerment (wang chen) before hand as a base. However, it's not unusual that a terma empowerment only uses torma and several limited objects, and serves as a full four level empowerments. All depends on what the text says.

[ambrosio]

Hi
I am a bit late to this discussion but would like to have a copy of the Gyun Khyer if anyone could send it. The Jamyang Khyentse Chokyi Lodro composition is a very different visualization - from what I can ascertain - where the central figure of Karma Pakshi is in the classic Nyingma meditation posture with hands on knees, and the first 7 Karmapas at the various chakras.
Thanks

[Sempa Dordsche]

Hallo,
es gibt immer wieder Karma Pakshi Kurse.
Demnächst ist einer in :
(Hello,
there are Karma Pakshi courses on a regulary base in Germany:)

12.–14.04 Karma Pakshi Meditation mit Lama Kunga Dordsche :
https://www.kcl-heidelberg.de/index.php ... programm-2

Und jedes Jahr dort : (And there every year:)

http://www.halscheid-retreat.de/cms/?ai ... wochenende

Für die Teilname kann man den Resident Lama um den Lung Bitten, falls nicht vorhanden.
(If you have no lung already, you can ask the resident lama before participating.)

[vajravarahi]

There is a post about both the Jamyang Khyentse Chokyi Lodro Guru Yoga daily sadhana (which is available from the translator on request by email in Tibetan and English) here:

https://dakinitranslations.com/2020/07/ ... okyi-lodro

The post also contains details about the Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche Karma Pakshi sadhana and how it was discovered etc. HHGK gave an empowerment of it in 2014, Germany.

[Ayu]

There is a post about both the Jamyang Khyentse Chokyi Lodro Guru Yoga daily sadhana (which is available from the translator on request by email in Tibetan and English) here:

https://dakinitranslations.com/2020/07/ ... okyi-lodro

The post also contains details about the Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche Karma Pakshi sadhana and how it was discovered etc. HHGK gave an empowerment of it in 2014, Germany.

As an exception this information was accepted in this necroed topic, because it is only relevant here. For further discussion please start a new thread and refer to this topic with a link.
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