amanitamusc wrote: ↑Tue May 01, 2018 2:44 amI remember Rinpoche saying the root samaya is Bodhichitta.
As GR has said:
Even though you have received many empowerments, if you understand the nature of the deity, you understand that it is sufficient to only practice a single deity. By practicing a single deity genuinely, you are accomplishing the essence of all deities. In fact, it is better to focus on the practice of just one deity, because then it will be easier to habituate to the deity to the point where you will not forget about the deity. To accomplish the deity means to never forget about the deity, it means that the deity always remains in your mind, it never separates from you. As it is always in your mind, you become the deity. If you never separate from the deity, you will also remember the deity in the Bardo after death, upon which you will attain enlightenment into the samboghakaya form of the deity.
Sometimes, people worry about receiving too many empowerments because they think that they cannot keep all the samayas. Actually, if you practice the root samaya of love, compassion and mindfulness, you are keeping all samayas of all deities, even if you only recite the mantra of one deity. In order to understand this, you must understand the essence of the deity. If you think that the deities are all separate, there will be a conflict. Actually, the power of one wisdom deity is contained within all deities. Various deities appear in order to suit the various thoughts and inclinations of sentient beings, but actually their nature is one and the same. The nature of all deities is bodhichitta. Therefore, if you practice bodhichitta and mindfulness, and only recite the mantra of one deity, you are keeping all your samayas. If you do not practice bodhicitta and mindfulness, no matter how many different mantras you recite, you are not keeping your samayas. That is because bodhicitta is the very life-energy of the deity. Without bodhicitta, the deity is like a dead body.
However, it is necessary to practice at least one deity on a daily basis. In the various empowerment texts, it is mentioned in the section of repeating the samaya that one must recite the mantra of that deity, but this must be mentioned in each sadhana because in old days the masters would only receive this one empowerment and then practice this for the rest of their lives. For this reason, it must be mentioned in each empowerment text. But for us, since we receive so many empowerments nowadays, it is crucial to understand the meaning and essence of the empowerment. It is said: "In the expanse of primordial wisdom, all the Buddhas are one.